Blonde

by Joyce Carol Oates

  He looked at her so funny, she was scared and started singing Bible songs. That sobered him up, fast.

  How Cherie ended up age thirty in a tavern in Arizona singing “Old Black Magic” off-key to drunken cowboys who don’t listen to her, who knows!

  Pursued by a cowboy crazy for her. His Angel. Always yelling, clumsy as a young bull. She’s terrified of him but will love him, marry him.

  Have his babies she’ll sing to, and play games with. And sew little toys and clothes for.

  Daddy, I miss you! It’s so far away here.

  Darling, I’ll be flying out to see you next week. I thought you liked it there? The mountains—

  The mountains scare me.

  I thought you said they were beautiful.

  Something has happened, Daddy.

  Darling, what? What has happened?

  I. . . don’t know.

  Do you mean on the set? The director, other actors?

  No.

  Darling, you’re frightening me. Are you—unwell?

  I don’t know. I don’t remember . . . what “well” is.

  Darling Norma, dearest girl, tell me what’s wrong.

  Darling, are you crying? What is it?

  I . . . don’t have the words, Daddy. I wish you were here.

  Is somebody being cruel to you? What is it?

  I wish we were married. I wish you were here.

  I’ll be there soon, darling. Can’t you tell me what’s wrong?

  I think . . . I’m afraid.

  Afraid of . . .?

  Darling, this is terribly upsetting. I love you so. I wish I could help you.

  You do help, Daddy. Just by being there.

  You’re not . . . taking too many pills, are you?

  No.

  Because it’s better to be a little insomniac, than—

  I know! You told me, Daddy.

  You’re sure no one has hurt you? Offended you?

  I guess I’m just . . . afraid. My heart beats so hard sometimes.

  You’re excited, darling. That’s why you’re an excellent actress. You immerse yourself in your role.

  I wish we were married now! I wish you could hold me.

  Darling, you’re breaking my heart. What can I do for you?

  What are you afraid of, dear one? Is it anything in particular?

  You won’t ever write about me, will you?

  Darling, of course not. Why would I do such a thing?

  It’s what people do. Sometimes. Writers.

  I’m not other people. You and I are not other people.

  I know we’re not, Daddy. But sometimes I’m just so afraid. I don’t want to sleep. . . .

  You’re not drinking, are you?

  No.

  Because you can’t tolerate alcohol, darling. You’re too sensitive. Your metabolism, your nerves—

  I don’t drink. Only champagne, to celebrate.

  We’ll be celebrating soon, darling. There’ll be so much to celebrate.

  I wish we were married now. I don’t think I’d be afraid then.

  But what are you afraid of, darling? Try to tell me.

  I can’t hear you, darling. Please.

  I think . . . I’m afraid of Cherie.

  Cherie? What?

  I’m afraid of her.

  Darling, I thought you loved that role.

  I do! I love Cherie. Cherie is . . . myself.

  Darling, Cherie may be a part of you, but only a part. You’re so much more than Cherie ever could be!

  Am I? I don’t think so.

  Don’t be ridiculous. Cherie is a comic-pathetic woman. Cherie is a sweet naive Ozark girl with no talent. She’s a singer who can’t sing, a dancer who can’t dance.

  She’s so much braver than I am, Daddy. She doesn’t despair.

  Darling, what are you saying? You don’t despair! You’re one of the happiest people I know.

  I am, Daddy?

  Certainly you are.

  I make you laugh a lot, don’t I? And other people.

  You certainly do. One day the world will recognize you as a marvelous comedienne.

  They will?

  They certainly will.

  You liked me as Magda, didn’t you? I made you laugh, and maybe I made you cry? I didn’t ruin that role.

  Darling, you were excellent as Magda. You were a far richer Magda than I’d created. And Cherie will be an even more brilliant performance.

  Sometimes I don’t know what people mean: “Performance.”

  You’re an accomplished actress, you “perform.” As a dancer dances on stage, and walks off. As a pianist performs, a public speaker. Always, you’re greater than your roles.

  People laugh at Cherie. They don’t understand.

  They laugh because you’re funny. You make Cherie funny. The laughter isn’t cruel, it’s sympathetic. They see themselves in you.

  Laughter isn’t cruel? Maybe it is.

  Not when the performer controls it. You’re the performer, and you’re in control.

  But Cherie doesn’t know she’s funny. She thinks she will be a star.

  That’s why she’s funny. She’s so . . . unconscious.

  It’s all right to laugh at Cherie because she’s “unconscious?”

  Darling, what are we arguing about? Why are you so excited? Of course Cherie’s funny, and touching too. Bus Stop is a very funny play, and it’s touching, too. But it’s a comedy, and not a tragedy.

  The ending. . . .

  Well, it’s a happy ending, isn’t it? They get married.

  There’s nobody else for Cherie. Nobody else to love her.

  Darling, Cherie is a character in a play! A play by William Inge!

  No.

  What d’you mean, no?

  Cherie, Magda . . . the others. They aren’t just roles.

  Of course they are.

  They’re in me. I’m them. They’re actual people in the world, too.

  I don’t understand you, darling. I know you don’t believe such a thing yourself.

  If they weren’t actual somewhere, you couldn’t write about them. And nobody would recognize them. Even if they look different.

  Dearest, all right. I think I know what you mean. You have a poet’s sensibility.

  What’s that mean, I’m a dumb blonde? A dumb broad?

  Darling, please!

  A stupid cunt, I’ve been called.

  Darling—

  I love Cherie! I don’t love “Marilyn.”

  Darling, we’ve discussed this. Don’t upset yourself.

  But people laugh at Cherie like they have a right. Because she’s a failure. “Can’t sing, can’t dance.”

  Not because she’s a failure. Because she has pretensions.

  She has hope!

  Darling, it’s not a good idea for us to talk like this. So far from each other. If I were there—

  You laugh at Cherie, people like you. Because she has hope and she has no talent. She’s a failure.

  —I could explain better. I love you so much, I can’t bear it when we misunderstand each other.

  It’s just that I love Cherie and want to protect her. From a woman like “Marilyn” she’d be compared to, y’know? That’s when people laugh.

  Darling, “Marilyn” is your stage name, your professional name, not a person. You speak as if—

  Sometimes at night when I can’t sleep, it’s clear to me. Where I made my first mistake.

  What mistake? When?

  The moon is so bright here it can hurt your eyes. The air is so cold. Even if I draw my blinds and cover my eyes, I know I’m in a strange landscape, even at night.

  Would you like me to come sooner, darling? I can.

  I told you, we drove to Sedona the other day? That’s north of Phoenix. It was like the beginning of the world. Those red mountains. And so empty. And quiet. Or maybe it was the end of the world. We were time travelers and traveled too far and couldn’t return.

  You said it was beautiful—


  It would be beautiful, at the end of the world. The sun will be all red and fill most of the sky, they say.

  This mistake you mentioned—

  Never mind, Daddy. I didn’t know you then.

  There are mistakes in every career, darling. It’s the things we do right that count. Believe me, darling, you’ve done many, many things right.

  I have, Daddy?

  Of course you have. You’re famous: that must count for something.

  What does it count for, Daddy? Does it mean I’m a good actress?

  I think so, yes.

  But I’m a better actress now. Since New York.

  Yes. You are.

  Does it mean I should be proud of myself?

  I think you should be proud of yourself, yes.

  Are you proud of yourself, Daddy? Your plays?

  Yes. Sometimes. I try.

  I try, too. Daddy, I do!

  I know you do, darling. That’s a good, healthy thing.

  It’s just that everybody watches me now, waiting for me to slip. They didn’t used to. I wasn’t anybody then. Now I’m “Marilyn” and they’re waiting. Like in New York. . . .

  Darling, you were fine in New York. It was your first time acting before a live audience and everyone was impressed and enthusiastic. You know that.

  But I was so scared. Oh, God, I was so scared.

  That’s stage fright, dearest. We all have it sometimes.

  I don’t think I can live with it. It makes me so exhausted.

  If you act on stage, you’ll have weeks of rehearsals. Six weeks minimum. Nothing like that reading.

  Daddy, I wish I could sleep at night but . . . I’m afraid of my dreams. The moon is so bright, and the stars. I’m used to the city. If you were here, Daddy, I know I could sleep! I could love love love you and boy! would I sleep.

  Soon, darling. I’ll be there soon.

  Maybe I wouldn’t ever wake up, I’d sleep so hard.

  You don’t mean that, darling.

  No, I don’t, because I can’t leave you. Once we’re married, I never want to spend a night away from you.

  You won’t have to. I’ll see to that.

  Daddy, did I tell you there’s this rodeo scene in the movie? Cherie’s there, in the bleachers. It’s hard for her to climb up in her high heels and tight skirt. Her skin’s so pale. We made her pale, a special chalky-white makeup for me, not just my face but everywhere you can see on me. She’s the only one in the crowd who looks like . . . this strange sad moon-pale thing. A female. The other women wear slacks and jeans, like men. They’re having a good time.

  Doesn’t Cherie have a good time?

  She’s this freak, she can’t have a good time. I was climbing up the bleachers, the sun was so bright I got dizzy and started vomiting. Not on camera!

  Sick to your stomach? Darling, are you ill?

  It’s Cherie, how tense she is. Because she knows people laugh at her even if, like you say, she’s “unconscious.”

  I didn’t mean “unconscious” in any derogatory way, darling. I was just trying to explain—

  I don’t want to be ashamed all my life. There’s people who laugh at me. . . .

  The hell with them. Who are they?

  People in Hollywood. Anywhere.

  Look, Time magazine is doing a cover story on Marilyn Monroe, for God’s sake. How many actresses, how many actors, have been on Time’s cover?

  Daddy, why’d you say that!

  What? What’s wrong?

  Oh, I told them it’s too soon! I told them, I didn’t want it yet. I’m not that old—

  Of course you’re not old. Not old at all.

  —it should come when I’m ready. When I deserve it.

  Darling, it’s an honor. Just don’t take it too seriously. You know what publicity is. This is publicity for Bus Stop. Your “return to Hollywood.” It can only help, not hurt.

  Daddy, why’d you bring that up? I didn’t want to think about that now.

  I’ll read the story before you see it, I promise. You won’t need to see even the cover if you don’t want to.

  But people will see it. All over the world. My face on the cover! My mother will see it; oh, what if the reporter says awful things about me? About my family? About . . . you?

  Darling, I’m sure that won’t happen. This will be a celebratory story, “The Return of Marilyn Monroe to Hollywood.”

  Daddy, I’m just so scared now! I wish you hadn’t said that.

  Darling, I’m sorry. Please. You know I adore you.

  I won’t be able to sleep now. I’m so scared.

  Darling, I’ll fly out as quickly as I can. I’ll make arrangements tomorrow morning.

  It’s worse now. It’s worse than it was. There are six hours I have to get through, before I can be Cherie again. I’m going to hang up now, Daddy. Oh, I love you!

  Darling, wait—

  Summoning Doc Fell to her motel room. No matter the hour of night. Doc Fell smiling with his emergency medical kit.

  A red-desert landscape. By day, an overexposed print. By night, a sky punctuated with lights like distant screams. You wanted not just to hide your eyes but press your hands over your ears.

  What was happening in Arizona on the Bus Stop location, what had happened in Los Angeles, what she could not tell her lover was a strangeness too elusive to be named.

  It had begun on the long flight westward. After she’d said goodbye to the Playwright at LaGuardia and kissed, kissed, kissed him until both their mouths were bruised.

  The task before him was divorce. The task before her, returning to “Marilyn Monroe.”

  Or it had begun on the long flight west. The plane flying ahead of the sun. Several times she asked the stewardess (who was serving drinks) what time it was in Los Angeles and when they would be arriving and how should she set her watch? She could not seem to calculate if they were time-traveling into the future or into the past.

  The Bus Stop screenplay with its numerous revisions and inserts and X’d-out passages. She’d seen the play on Broadway starring Kim Stanley and secretly believed she’d be a much more convincing Cherie. But if you fail. They’re waiting. She’d brought with her also the oversized secondhand copy of The Illustrated Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. There were profound truths here! She was eager to learn. The Playwright seemed to be impressed with her knowledge of books but sometimes he smiled in a way that meant she’d said something wrong or mispronounced a word. But how do you know what words sound like, from just reading? Those names in Dos-toyevsky’s novels! Those names in Chekhov! There was a certain grandeur in such names, uttered in full.

  She was the Fair Princess returning to the cruel kingdom that had sent her into exile. Yet, as the Fair Princess, she was forgiving of course.

  “So happy. So grateful. It’s time for ‘Marilyn’ to return to work!”

  “What feud? Oh there’s no feud! I love Hollywood, and I hope Hollywood loves me.”

  “An individual, like a species, must adapt or perish. To a changing environment. And the environment’s always changing! In a democracy like ours . . . so many discoveries in science alone. One day soon, a man on the moon.” She laughed breathlessly, for all things were revealed to her, microphones shoved into her face. “One day the mystery of mysteries, the origin of life. Why I’m naturally optimistic.”

  “Oh, yes, like Cherie, my film character. A sweet little honky-tonk chanteuse stranded in the Wild West. But a born optimist. A born American. I love her!”

  Yet, disembarking at Los Angeles International Airport! She may have panicked slightly, refusing to leave the plane. Emissaries from The Studio came aboard. So many people were awaiting the arrival of Marilyn Monroe: photographers, reporters, TV crews, fans. A roaring as of a waterfall sounded in her ears. It was Honolulu, it was Tokyo. Two hours and forty minutes would pass before the Blond Actress could be escorted to a limousine and driven swiftly away. In the background glimpses of the frightened faces of ordinary travelers caught in
milling crowds and police barricades. An earthquake? A plane crash? An A-bomb attack on Los Angeles? This is in mockery she thought. In the morning papers there were front-page photos, articles.

  MARILYN MONROE RETURNS TO HOLLYWOOD.

  MOBS AT AIRPORT.

  MARILYN MONROE TO RESUME FILMS.

  MARILYN “HOME AGAIN, HAPPY”

  In photos there was the Blond Actress replicated like a figure reflected in multiple mirrors. Front, profile, left side, right side, smiling, smiling more radiantly, blowing kisses, kissy-kissy mouth. An enormous bouquet in her arms. Also on the front page of the Los Angeles Times were articles reporting the meeting of British Prime Minister Anthony Eden and Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Bulganin, and the meeting of President Eisenhower with a representative of the recently formed Federal Republic of West Germany. There was a human interest story on the families of the “top classified” scientists involved in the recent testing of an H-bomb (10 million tons TNT equivalent!) on Bikini atoll in the South Pacific. Mudslides in Malibu “claiming” three lives. An “orderly” NAACP picketing in Pasadena led by the Reverend Martin Luther King.

  In mockery of me she thought. Of what I am.

  Marilyn Monroe had a new agent, Bix Holyrod, of the Swanson Agency. She had a team of lawyers. She had a “money man.” With her advance from signing the Bus Stop contract, she made the first installment of what would be in time a $100,000 trust fund for her mother, Gladys Mortensen. She had a press secretary provided by The Studio. She had a makeup man, a hairdresser, a manicurist, a skin-hair-health expert with a degree from UCLA, a masseur, a costumer, a driver, and a “general assistant.” She was temporarily housed in luxurious Bel-Air Towers near Beverly Boulevard, where often she would wander confused and lost unable to locate the entrance to Building B. She had difficulty with the keys, which often she misplaced. In the furnished apartment provided her there were a housekeeper and a part-time cook who addressed her in reverent whispers as “Miss Monroe.” Beneath the fragrant flower scent (for the apartment was always filled with floral displays) a subtle scent of fungicide. She kept none of these floral displays in her bedroom, knowing they would use up her oxygen. There were a half-dozen telephone extensions in the apartment but the phone rarely rang. All of Marilyn’s calls were screened for her. When she lifted the phone receiver to make an outgoing call the line was often dead, or it crackled in that way (the Playwright had told her) that meant her phone was being tapped. She was careful to keep Venetian blinds drawn in all the windows. The apartment was on the third floor of the building and vulnerable. She asked her housekeeper to sew tags onto every item of her clothing and to keep a careful laundry list for she’d been told (by Bix Holyrod, who thought it was funny) there was a lucrative black-market trade in Marilyn Monroe undergarments. She attended luncheons and dinners in her honor. She excused herself in the midst of such events to telephone the Playwright in New York City, in his new quarters, a small walk-up apartment on Spring Street. One of the most lavish of the dinner parties for Marilyn was hosted by Mr. Z, who had now a new magnificent Mediterranean villa estate in Bel Air and a new young wife, bronze-haired, with breasts like armor. Mr. Z had aged surprisingly well. He seemed in fact to be younger than she recalled. Though shorter than she (“my major asset, Marilyn”) by several inches, with a small hump between his shoulder blades, Mr. Z now boasted flowing white hair of the kind called leonine and his eyes were those of an Old Wise Man. Mr. Z was a Hollywood pioneer, a living “chunk of history.”