Blonde

by Joyce Carol Oates

  They praised me for my age all who knew me. Sharpshooter they called me & sometimes Little Soldier.

  The golden eagle & the California condor are rarities now but in my boyhood we shot many of these & strung up their carcasses in warning! Now you know. Now you are but meat & feathers, now you are nothing. Yet there was beauty in contemplating such powerful creatures of the air, I would have to concede. To bring down a golden eagle as Daddy would say is a task for a man & to see its golden neck feathers close up. (To this day I carry with me, in memory of my boyhood, a six-inch golden feather close to my heart.) The condor was an even larger bird, with black-feathered wings (we’d measured once at ten feet) & vivid white underwing feathers like a second pair of wings. The cries of these great birds! Gliding in wide circles & tilting from side to side & what was strange in such creatures was how, feeding, they might be joined by others swiftly flying from far beyond the range of a man’s vision.

  Of the butcher birds it was goshawks I shot the most of, as a boy. For there were so many & when their numbers were depleted in our vicinity I would go in search of them, farther & farther from home, in ever-widening circles. Choosing to travel cross-country, I would ride a horse. Later, when I was old enough to have a driver’s license & the price of gasoline not yet too high, I would drive. A goshawk is gray & blue & their feathers like vapor so that drifting against a filmy sky they would vanish & reappear & again vanish & reappear & I would become excited, knowing I must fire to strike a target not only speeding but not visible & yet this I would do, by instinct, sometimes missing (I concede) but often my bullet struck its target to yank the soaring creature from the sky as if I held an invisible string attached to it & had such power over it, unknown by the goshawk & unguessed, I might yank it down to earth in an instant.

  On the ground, their beautiful feathers bloody, & eyes staring open, they lay still as if they’d never been alive.

  Butcher bird now you know—I would speak to these calmly.

  Butcher bird now you know who has dominion over you, who cannot fly as you fly—never would I gloat, almost there was a sadness in my speech.

  For what is the melancholy of the Sharpshooter, after his beautiful prey lies crumpled at his feet? Of this, no poet has yet spoken, & I fear none ever will.

  Those years. I lived in that place yet spent long days roaming & often slept in the pickup, following I know not what thread of unnamable desire drawing me sometimes as far south as the San Bernardino Mountains & into the vast desert spaces of Nevada. I was a soldier seeking my army. I was a sharpshooter seeking my calling. In the rearview mirror of the pickup a fine pale-powdery ascension of dust & in the distance before me watery mirages that beckoned & teased. Your destiny! Where is your destiny! Driving with my rifle beside me on the passenger’s seat, sometimes two rifles, & a double-barreled shotgun, loaded & primed to be fired. Sometimes in the emptiness of the desert I would drive with boyish bravado, my rifle slanted at an angle on the steering wheel as if I might fire through the windshield if required. (Of course, I would never do such a self-destructive thing!) Often I would be gone for days & weeks & by this time Daddy was dead & my uncle elderly & ailing & there was no one to observe me. Not butcher birds exclusively but other birds too became my targets, primarily crows, for there are too many crows in existence, & such game birds as pheasants & California quail & geese, for which I would use my shotgun, though I did not trouble to search out their carcasses where they fell stricken from the air.

  Rabbits & deer & other creatures I might shoot, yet not as a hunter. A Sharpshooter is not a hunter. With binoculars scanning the range & the desert, seeking life & movement. Once I saw on a mountainside in the Big Maria Mountains (near the Arizona border) what appeared to be a face—a female face, & unnatural blond hair, & unnatural red mouth pursed in a teasing kiss—& though trying not to stare at this apparition I was helpless before it, & my pulses pounded, & my temples, & I reasoned it was but a billboard & not an actual face & yet it teased & taunted so, at last I could not resist aiming my rifle at it as I went slowly by, & fired a number of times until the terrible pressure was relieved & I’d driven past, & no one to witness. Now you know. Now you know. Now you know.

  Soon after that my excitation was such, I was drawn to target-shoot sheep & cattle, even a grazing horse, provided the countryside was empty of all witnesses. For how easy to pull the trigger as they would tell me one day in the Agency. There is a sacred wisdom here, I believe it is a pioneer wisdom. Where the bullet flies, the target dies. Subtle as poetry is What is the target is not the question, only where. Sometimes I would sight a vehicle far away on the highway scarcely more than a speck rapidly approaching & if there were no witnesses (in the Nevada desert, rarely were there witnesses) at the crucial instant as our vehicles neared each other I would lift my rifle & aim out my rolled-down window & taking into account the probable combined velocities of both vehicles rushing together I would squeeze the trigger at the strategic moment; with the supreme control of the Sharpshooter I would not flinch, though the other driver might pass close enough by for me to see the expression on his (or her) face; I would proceed onward without slackening my speed, nor increasing it, observing calmly in my rearview mirror the target vehicle swerving from the highway to crash by the roadside. If there were witnesses what were they but butcher birds gazing down at such a spectacle from their high-soaring heights; & butcher birds despite the keenness of their eyes cannot bear witness. These were in no way personal vengeful acts, only the instinct of the Sharpshooter.

  Shoot! Shoot the fuckers! Daddy would command, & what could a son do but obey.

  It was in 1946 I would be hired by the Agency. Too young to have served my country in wartime, I pledged to serve my country in these interludes of false peace. For Evil has come home to America. It is not of Europe now or even of the Soviets exclusively but has come to our continent to subvert & destroy our American heritage. For the Communist Enemy is both foreign & yet close to us as any neighbor. This Enemy can indeed be the neighbor. Evil is the word for the target as it is said in the Agency. Evil is what we mean by our target.

  ROSLYN 1961

  “I can’t memorize the words by themselves. I have to memorize the feelings.”

  The Misfits would be the Blond Actress’s final film. There are observers who claim she must have known this, you can see it in her face. Roslyn Tabor would be her strongest screen performance. Not a blond thing! A woman, at last. Roslyn confides in a woman friend she always ends up back where she’s started & Roslyn speaks wistfully of her mother who “wasn’t there” & her father who “wasn’t there” & her handsome ex-husband who “wasn’t there” & Roslyn who’s an adult woman over thirty & not a girl confesses on the brink of tears I miss my mother & we know that this is the Blond Actress speaking. She speaks of not having children & we know that this is the Blond Actress speaking. She never finished high school. She feeds a hungry dog & she feeds hungry men. She nurses men. Wounded, aging, grief-stricken men. Sheds tears for men incapable of shedding tears for themselves. Screams at men in the Nevada desert, calling them Liars! Killers! She convinces them to free the wild horses they’ve lassoed. Wild mustangs that are themselves, wild lost wounded male souls. Oh, Roslyn’s their shining madonna. Intense & breathless & luminous as one at the brink of a precipice. Saying We’re all dying aren’t we. We’re not teaching each other what we know. Roslyn is the Blond Actress’s invention & her screen speech a mimicry of the Blond Actress’s private speech & if the playwright husband who wrote the screenplay & appropriated his wife’s speech & certain painful circumstances of her life wished also to appropriate her soul, the Blond Actress would not so accuse him. No. We exist for each other & in each other. Roslyn is your gift to me as Roslyn was my gift to you.

  Now that she no longer loved him.

  Now it was only poetry that bound them. A poetry of speech, & a yet more eloquent poetry of gesture.

  She’d been unfaithful to him, he supposed he knew.

>   With whom, how many, when & how & with what degree of emotion, passion, or even sincerity he would not wish to know. He was a caretaker husband now, a famous actress’s nurse. (Yes, he felt the irony: in The Misfits, luminous Roslyn is everybody’s nurse.) He was uncomplaining, stoic, resigned, & when he could not help himself he was hopeful. For that much remained of his youthful ambitious self. He would be faithful to her until she rejected his very touch. He would love her long after. For had she not carried his baby killed in the womb, were they not now linked for life in a way too deep & profound & sacred to be named? She was no longer his Magda, nor was she his Roslyn, he knew!—yet he would care for her & he would forgive her (if she wished forgiveness; this wasn’t certain). Guardedly he asked, “Are you certain you want to do this film, Norma? You’re strong enough?”—meaning by this without drugs this time, without killing herself as helpless he would have to watch; & hurt, angry, she told him, “I’m always strong enough. None of you know me.”

  We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before it to prevent our seeing it.

  These words, copied in Norma Jeane’s schoolgirl journal.

  She wasn’t sure she understood. Did Carlo mean this to apply to her?

  He’d given her Pascal’s Pensées before she left for Reno, on location for The Misfits. Carlo-not-her-lover-who-yet-loved-her.

  “My little gal Angela, all growed up, eh?”

  Who but H had been hired to direct The Misfits! H the distinguished director of The Asphalt Jungle. The Blond Actress revered H, whom she had not met in ten years. He gave me my start. He gave me my chance. She’d planned to hug the older man when they met but his lined face, whiskey breath, & paunch discouraged her; his rude staring eyes more bloodshot than her own. H had observed the Blond Actress’s career with bemused skeptical interest as a father might observe from a distance the life of a bastard daughter or son: misbegotten offspring for whom he need feel no paternal responsibility, only just a wayward elliptical connection. At their initial meeting in Hollywood the Blond Actress was shy & may have flinched as H took both her hands in his & squeezed them, hard. That hearty gravel voice, that male manner a woman can’t determine is he mocking or affectionate or somehow both? She would call him “mister,” wanting to defer to him. He would call her “honey” as if unable to recall her name. He would speak more respectfully to her husband the playwright. He would make her uneasy pointedly looking her over, as a worldly man known for his appreciation of both horse-and woman-flesh. He would make her yet more uneasy by recalling her audition for Asphalt Jungle—“You got to be Angela just by walking away.” The Blond Actress asked what did he mean?—she’d auditioned like anyone else except she’d lain on the floor to speak Angela’s lines because Angela was supposed to be lying on a sofa; & H laughed & winked at Z (they were in Z’s opulently furnished office at The Studio, signing contracts) & repeated—“No, honey. You got to be Angela just by walking away.” A sick wave of hurt washed over the Blond Actress. He means my ass. The bastard.

  The Blond Actress could not now recall her Angela self very clearly. To recall Angela would be to recall Mr. Shinn, whom she had betrayed, unless he’d betrayed her. To recall Angela would be to recall Cass Chaplin when they’d been new young lovers. My soul mate Cass had called her. My beautiful twin. She would not wish to recall herself before Angela, the yet-unnamed starlet who’d been summoned to Mr. Z’s office to see the Aviary.

  Z’s office was in another building on The Studio lot now. The furnishings in this office were Asian: thick-piled Chinese rugs, brocaded sofas & chairs, & on the walls antique scrolls & watercolors of exquisite natural scenes. Z was known in the industry as the man who’d invented MARILYN MONROE. In interviews Z boasted quietly of keeping “my girl” on contract when other executives including the then-president of the company had wanted to terminate her. (“Why? You won’t believe it: they didn’t think she could act, & they didn’t think she was attractive.”)

  The Blond Actress heard herself laugh, flirtatious & friendly. She’d been feeling good that day. That was one of her good days. And she looked good. It was her fervent belief that The Misfits would be a great classic movie & that the role of Roslyn would be her salvation. It would make people forget Sugar Kane & The Girl Upstairs & Lorelei Lee & the others. Not a blond thing! A woman, at last.

  “Well. I’m not Angela any longer, Mr. H. I’m not Marilyn Monroe either, not in this movie.”

  “No? You look like Marilyn Monroe to me, honey.”

  “I’m Roslyn Tabor.”

  This was a good answer. She could see H liked it.

  There’s a kind of horse, could be a pure Thoroughbred, requires the whip to run his best. That’s me. I was in debt and I needed to be bailed out and this deal came along and Monroe was part of it. I didn’t respect her as an actress. I hadn’t seen most of her films. I didn’t think I could trust her, or even like her. I never had patience for suicidal neurotics. Kill yourself if you’re going to, but don’t botch life for other people. That’s my belief.

  People said I was crazy for her, and people said I was hard on her and caused her to crack up. The hell with that. You could see in her eyes what the story was. Permanently bloodshot, capillaries burst. We couldn’t have filmed Misfits in color if we’d planned to.

  Reno, Nevada. It’s a film in black & white like memory. A film of the forties, not of the sixties. Dead actors! And already posthumous in the telling.

  The Blond Actress instructed herself I will be professional in all ways.

  The Blond Actress & the playwright husband she no longer loved yet who continued doggedly (it would be remarked upon by witnesses) to love her lived, in Reno, in what would be Reno-Misfit-hell, in a suite of rooms on the tenth (top) floor of the Zephyr Hotel, so named for Zephyr Cove. On the first day of shooting, due on the set at 10 A.M., already by 9 A.M. the Blond Actress had hidden away in a locked bathroom incapable of forcing herself to contemplate the frightened apparition in any mirror & she would turn away from the door even her faithful Whitey, who begged Miss Monroe to allow him to try. She was sheer emotion. She was sheer nerves. Not a coherent thought! Hadn’t slept all night; or, if she had slept intermittently, possibly now she was still asleep, her barbiturate-stunned brain in a sleep state though her eyes were open & she’d managed to crawl from bed & into the bathroom. And she refused to unlock the door. And the playwright husband begged. And the playwright husband threatened to call the front desk of the hotel, to ask that the door be removed from its hinges. The Blond Actress screamed at them to go away & leave her & blocks away on the set arriving at 11:15 A.M. the playwright husband made excuses for her—Marilyn has a migraine—Marilyn has a fever—Marilyn will be here this afternoon she promises—& the distinguished director H grunted & said little except he’d film around Roslyn that morning & in private saying he hoped to Christ if Monroe was going to crack up it would be sooner, not later.

  Locked away in a room of the Zephyr Hotel in Reno, Nevada. A view of sun-blinded streets & neon casino signs—$$$—& in the distance a mountain range called the Virginias, dusty-diaphanous as a stage set faded of all color. It was an era in which Reno, Nevada, was the divorce capital of the United States & so it was logical that Roslyn was here & would be divorced—“freed”—in this desert city. Oh, she was Roslyn! She would be Roslyn to her fingertips. This is the role of my life. Now you will all see what I can do. Only just, she was feeling shaky. Trying to read the script & her vision was blurred. Already it was noon & she’d been due on the set at 10 A.M. & she believed she might yet prepare herself to arrive on the set by mid-or late afternoon & hoped that H would be sympathetic. He will, he likes me! He’s like a father to me. He gave me my start.

  In this stark pitiless sun she wore dark glasses everywhere & shrank from photographers & reporters waiting like vultures in the lobby of the Zephyr or out on the street. The set was closed to them but not public places. H complained that Monroe brought with her packs of dogs like a bitch
in heat & the less she gave them, the more they wished from her, & harassed others including him. How is Marilyn? How is her marriage? Fine white cracks had appeared at the corners of her eyes & framing her mouth & those eyes once so blue & beautiful were now a fine network of burst capillaries so that the eyeballs were discolored as if with jaundice not even a twelve-hour sleep might heal. Lucky this movie isn’t in Technicolor, huh?

  You no more could predict what might emerge from that luscious Marilyn mouth than you could guess, or estimate, all that’d gone into it.

  She’d told H & the others, all of them men, that she was Roslyn Tabor. “I know Roslyn. I love her.” This was both true & not-so-true. For Roslyn is only what men see. What about a Roslyn the men never see? She’d told H that Roslyn’s dialogue was poetic & beautiful & yet she wished for Roslyn to do more in the movie apart from consoling the men & wiping their noses & making them feel admired & loved; why couldn’t Roslyn be the first person the audience sees in the movie, Roslyn emerging from a train, Roslyn driving a car into Reno, Roslyn in motion & active—not, as it was, Roslyn near-invisible behind an upstairs window as a man casts his eyes upward, in search of her; & the next scene, Roslyn peering worriedly into a mirror as she applies makeup. “The hell with windows, mirrors. Makeup! Let’s see Marilyn—I mean R-roslyn—full on.” The more she thought about it, the more she wanted some of Roslyn’s corny lines cut, no matter if they had been penned by a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright. She wanted new dialogue. And why couldn’t Roslyn herself cut the trapped horses free at the end of the movie? “Roslyn could do it just as well as the cowboy. Monroe, not Gable. Or both—Monroe & Gable? See?” She’d grown excited trying to explain the logic & how it was movie logic, the Fair Princess & the Dark Prince united to cut free the mustangs; sure, Gable could keep the stallion for himself to free, & she could free the others—“Why the hell not?” H stared at her as at a madwoman & yet called her honey to placate her.