Literacy and Longing in L. A. (20 page)

Nightmare

“Last night I dreamt
I went to Manderley again.”

~
Daphne du Maurier (1907–1989),
Rebecca ~

I
’ve never been the kind of person who talks about her dreams. The reason may well be that I rarely can remember what happens or who’s involved, and a few hours past dawn, the fleeting images are lost forever.

My friends are just the opposite. Darlene says she dreams about her mother all the time, half the time she is in heaven and the other half in hell. She also says she has graphic “wolves at the gate” dreams where she’s helplessly trapped, nowhere to run. Pamela’s dream involves a carpenter who boarded up her whole house and she could never get into her closets again.

The few dreams I half remember are pretty standard.
I’m being chased by a man in dark clothes and my legs turn to mush and I can’t move or Virginia and I are seated together in an airplane and suddenly the bottom falls out and we tumble through the air in slo-mo, falling, falling, falling. Palmer’s dreams were classic too, in a male sort of way—he is eating a hamburger and all his teeth fall out or he is about to take an exam when he realizes, well, you know. Everyone’s had this one.

But the dream I will never forget was different. It occurred in my childhood shortly after my father left us. I’ve never told another living soul about it except for my mother, and her reaction was so odd that I decided not to tell anyone else, ever.

The event that presumably triggered it was a road trip to the Amish country during one spring vacation. We passed miles of rolling pastures and scenic farms, but soon after cruising through a bucolic little town there was a potent, sickeningly sweet, unearthly stink that assaulted our senses like some grotesque pool of rot. Mother told Virginia and me that we were driving past a slaughterhouse. And I was fascinated.

“How are the animals killed?” I asked.

“They bash them over the head with a sledgehammer,” Virginia taunted as she slapped me hard on the head with the back of her fist.

“That’s not true, is it, Mother?” I replied in shock.

“I don’t know,” she replied, distracted, as usual. “I think they do something to that effect. It’s a terrible thought, isn’t it?”

I had the dream that night. It began with my father
telling Virginia and me that there was a carnival in town and that he was taking us all, including my mother. I should have been suspicious right away, because Mother never went with us to amusement parks. She just didn’t believe in them.

When we arrived, she led Virginia off to the Ferris wheel and my father took my hand.

“Why don’t you and I go over here to the bumper cars,” he said. I was thrilled. Just him and me. We were a couple! I felt special and completely loved.

“If she doesn’t want to go, don’t force her,” my mother said. But I was excited.

“No, I want to go,” I answered.

We hiked for what seemed like miles in a dream forest, dimly lit with narrow, overgrown trails and darkening skies. Then we reached a clearing. There were banner-like streamers of little red plastic flags fluttering in the breeze like a used-car lot, and I realized it wasn’t bumper cars at all but a large oval track where cars went around and around in a circle. The riders, all children about my age, wore helmets, and when they passed the front entrance, a giant robotic sledgehammer slammed down on their heads and killed them.

My father told me I had to trust him. That the hammer wouldn’t come down on my head. That he wouldn’t leave and that he’d be there to stop it before it was my turn. I cried, but I put on the helmet anyway and got into the car.

No matter how hard I try to remember, I’m still not sure what happened next. The images are shadowy with
some suggestion of another ghostly presence somewhere, whispering, cajoling, insisting that I stay put in the car. Then I woke up abruptly.

I suppose any mother would be horrified to hear a daughter recount such a thing. I know I would. But I needed to tell her about the panic and heavy, numbing sadness I felt when I woke up. She grew very quiet and then asked me if I made this up. “You read that in Edgar Allan Poe or one of your mysteries, right?” When I said no, she asked me if I really believed that my father would do such a thing. I said no to this too, because I didn’t.

“Then why did you dream this?” she puzzled.

“I don’t know,” I told her. I was shaken up and so was she. But it wasn’t her style to comfort me. I have a vague recollection of her deliberately changing the subject in the way that she always did when painful issues cropped up. I needed something from her, maybe reassurance, maybe just a warm hug. But, as usual, we moved on.

Last Book Standing

“I like a thin book because it will steady a table,
a leather volume because it will strop a razor, and
a heavy book because it can be thrown at a cat.”

~
Mark Twain
~

E
very August since my father died, my mother spends a week in L.A. When I was married to Palmer, she stayed with us. He couldn’t really refuse, considering I put up with his mother for the entire month of January. But Palmer and my mother actually seemed to get along. She liked his self-confidence, ease, and grace; he liked her independence, intellect, and patrician bearing.

Now that I’m separated, she stays with Virginia, to “help” her out with the baby.

“You have to come over here right now! She’s driving me crazy. Maybe she could stay with you for a while,” Virginia whines.

“She wants to be with Camille.”

“Well, she makes her tense.”

“She makes HER tense?”

“Okay. She makes ME tense. I don’t do anything right. Feed her the right foods. Put her to bed on time. The baby’s either too hot or too cold. She thinks I’m spoiling her.”

It’s the classic problem with mothers. They want to tell you how to raise your child—as if they did such a good job with you. I decide to give Virginia a break and take my mother out for the day.

“You don’t have to entertain me, Dora. I’m just fine.” Mothers always say this. What are you supposed to do? Throw her the
TV Guide
and say, “See ya”?

“I’d like to spend some time with you,” I counter convincingly.

“Well, let me check with Virginia and see if she needs me.” She puts her hand on the receiver as she yells to Virginia. “Do you need me here today, dear?” I’m betting she’ll say no. Mother comes back on the line. “Virginia says she doesn’t need me, so I’m all yours.”

I tell my mother I have a great idea for a literary outing. For a long time now, I’ve been meaning to drive by Aldous Huxley’s house on Deronda Drive in the Hollywood Hills. His original residence burned down in the early sixties, but I wanted to see where he and his second wife, Laura, lived until his death, the same day Kennedy was assassinated.

As we’re driving through Beechwood Canyon, I point out that a biographer had described the Huxleys as oddly detached when flames destroyed their library, which contained, among other things, two unfinished novels, an original D. H. Lawrence manuscript, literary correspondences including Aldous’s first wife’s love letters, and his copiously annotated book collection. Evidently, they had plenty of time to rescue such irreplaceable treasures but chose instead to salvage some suits, Laura’s Guarneri violin, and a Chinese porcelain statue. When asked how he coped in the aftermath of the fire, Huxley is said to have replied, “One goes out and buys a toothbrush.”
^*

We decide to follow Huxley’s daily routine. He wrote every morning, and in the afternoon he walked in Hollywood’s immense Griffith Park. I love this park. When Palmer and I were dating, we would go to the Observatory, lie on the grass on our backs, and watch the constellations in the summer sky. It was very romantic.

We pull into the Beechwood Market, a popular hippie gourmet deli, and pick up some baguettes, chèvre, prosciutto, Pellegrino for her, and a bottle of Chianti for me. Then we head for the picnic grounds surrounding the famous deco merry-go-round. We sit close enough so we can watch the noble horses gracefully execute imaginary leaps and hear the organ piping out an unending series of marches and waltz music. The music brings back memories of utopian afternoons with my father at the Willow Grove amusement park. I decide not to share this with my mother.

We spread out our feast on a wooden picnic table under a grove of California oak trees and start to eat. I look over at my mother as she sighs contentedly, closes her eyes, and arches her long, graceful neck toward the sun. She has a beautiful, angular face with extravagantly high cheekbones and a long Roman nose. Her skin is still smooth and unwrinkled like a woman half her age and her thick auburn hair is styled in a chic wavy bob.

She seems so together and relaxed. The bitter, self-pitying, abandoned wife is gone, along with her periods of raging storms and melancholia when she prowled around our living room in her long pink housecoat, clinking the ice in her cocktail glass at noon.

Mother leans back farther on the bench and stretches out her long legs. She’s wearing a pair of loose jeans, a long-sleeved cotton T-shirt, and Keds. As long as I can remember, she’s preached to me about staying out of the sun, but she’s clearly reached the stage in her life when she doesn’t care. I watch her basking in the afternoon sun as if it were a forbidden pleasure. Her khaki safari hat is thrown beside her on the bench. She looks around and I think I’m going to hear something about the glorious day or the bucolic surroundings.

“You know, I never liked Aldous Huxley.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he had one good book in him and after that he spent his life experimenting with drugs and women.”

“So, why did you want to come here?”

“I thought you wanted to come here.” This is so annoying. Oh well.

“Mother, did you know that Jim Morrison named his band The Doors after one of Huxley’s books?”
^*

“Who’s Jim Morrison?”

“Never mind, Mom.”

We’re quiet for a minute as we listen to the music and, when it stops, the breeze rustling the trees. She tilts her head and gives me a concerned look.

“So, what’s going on with you, Dora?” My stomach tightens.

“Well, I’m trying to get my old job back.”

She pauses, takes a sip of her Pellegrino, and gives me a rueful smile.

“And what about Palmer?”

“I don’t know. It’s complicated.” I’m not going to get into this with her.

“I hate to dwell on ancient history, but I feel as if my problems with your father had a terrible impact on you girls. And I wouldn’t want you to give up something good because of…” She pauses and breaks off for a moment in an attempt to gather her thoughts.

“Your father had a lot of very special qualities. And even though we had our differences, we worked it out.”

Oh yeah, they worked it out. He was gone for eight years.

“I don’t know exactly how to say this, but I hope you didn’t torpedo this because of what happened between your father and me. When he left us, I think you girls reacted in different ways. I wasn’t able to deal with any of it because of my drinking, so I’d throw you a book and you’d disappear. When I look back, I’m so ashamed.”

This is unlike her. She’s usually so stoic. The stone goddess barricaded in her bedroom.

“I should have held you girls close. I should have been more loving and more aware of your needs. The alcohol blurred my priorities and we lost a lot of good years together. It’s completely my fault.”

I can see tears welling in her eyes. I put my arms around her.

“Come on, Mom. You took us to the museum. You took us on literary trips. You did a lot.”

“Not really. When I look back, I feel so sad and guilty. All I could think about was that your father left me.” She starts crying. I can’t remember ever seeing her like this.

“Mom, you were overwhelmed. There wasn’t anybody there to help you. We got through it. Isn’t that the important thing?”

“I just want you to be happy.”

“I am happy, Mom.” I’m ecstatically happy.

For some reason, I suddenly get a fleeting image of my sister and me as teenagers the morning my mother “ran away.” At least that’s the way Ginny described it to me one morning at breakfast before I left for school. My father, who had come back for a short visit, had left for the office before dawn to avoid any discussion or unpleasantness.

“What do you mean she ran away?” I asked, hoping she was kidding.

“Well, she left me a note on my desk telling me she was going to Atlantic City for the rest of the year and would I please tell Dad.”

That night, she called at two in the morning to tell us that the screen door to her motel room wouldn’t lock and the wind kept rattling the windows. She was scared and wanted to come home. She maybe lasted twenty-four hours. I remember saying that I wished she could have made it work because she would have been happier. Anyway, the next morning she appeared, as usual, and said, “It was a dumb idea. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Are you listening to me, Dora? I’d like you to have the security of marriage. Anyway, when people commit to each other, it’s always a risk. But for you, I think, it became the overwhelming issue. Maybe you can’t tell the difference between someone like your father and someone like Palmer.” Mother composes herself as she wrings the handkerchief between her hands. She still finds it hard to embrace me.

“Have you been talking to Ginny?” Virginia always liked Palmer.

“Now, don’t get mad at your sister. We’re all concerned about you.”

“Well, you don’t have to be so concerned. I broke up with Fred.” The memory of him, the physical sensation, abruptly washes over me. I take a large sip of wine. I’m getting a slight buzz.

“Good. And, by the way, you ought to watch yourself in that department.” She nods her head toward the bottle of wine. “It creeps up slowly. Don’t fall into the same trap I did.”

“Okay, Mom. I get it.” Her heartfelt apologies are clearly over.

On the way home, Mother confides that she is seeing a man named Thomas, a retired high school math teacher who also fixes clocks. All her widowed girlfriends adore him and he putters around their houses during Sunday brunches repairing their broken appliances and window hardware. The polar opposite of my father.

I drop her off and collapse back into my apartment. I start to pour another glass of Chianti and then think better of it. Fuck it. I pour it anyway. I pour two. Oh good. Now I’m feeling shaky. I flop on the bed and try to think about something other than what has just transpired in the park. Dammit. I hate thinking about those awful years. I hate talking about them. I hate analyzing them. I hate them! Hate them! Hate them! I go into the bathroom and wash my face. Maybe my mother’s right. Maybe my whole life has been a reaction to my messed-up childhood. But everyone has a messed-up childhood. People get beyond it and lead productive lives. They don’t float around. Shit! What’s happening to me?

I walk back into the bedroom and eye the bookshelf. I pull out John Fowles’s
The French Lieutenant’s Woman
. When did I last read this? What was it about, anyway? Two different endings. One happy. One sad. The author is God. He gets to decide. I close the cover and hurl the book against the wall. The cover splays open and the pages crunch accordion-like on the floor. Gee. That feels good! I pick out another one. It’s Henry James’s
The Portrait of a Lady
. Isabel’s life is ruined by the lowlife Gilbert Osmond. A big, fat hardback. Thud! It slams against the wall and chips the plaster. D. H. Lawrence.
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
. Another depressing love affair. The husband brooding in his wheelchair. Slam! Iain Pears. Ick. Reminds me of Fred. I throw this sucker extra hard. I start grabbing the books one by one and pitching them like hardballs against the wall. John Updike. Slam! Henry Miller. Slam! Edith Wharton. Slam! Missed the wall and hit the lamp. The lightbulb explodes like a firecracker.

Books with broken spines are now heaped on top of each other like a literary junkyard. My bookshelf is almost empty. I’m feeling oddly empowered and liberated. I could just tip over the whole thing now and be done with it. How childish and what a mess. The tears are rolling down my face and I start to laugh. How ironic. The last book standing is
Huck Finn
. It almost makes me want to call Palmer because he’d laugh too. Instead, I dial Virginia.

“Virginia?”

“Yes, Dora.” Her voice sounds really groggy.

“I just threw every book I own against the wall.”

There is silence on the other end.

“Well, that’s a start.” She laughs.