The Truth is Bad Enough: What Became of the Happy Hustler? (3 page)

Her second husband, Poppy was not a violent man; he was, in fact, infinitely more cut out for the marriage job than she was. Being a wife was not high on the list of Grandma Mamie’s accomplishments. In what could only be perceived as one of the most ironic occupations, considering her wifely shortcomings, my mother’s mom sewed wedding dresses for very expensive dolls—exquisitely designed, pristinely white and hugging the bride’s manufactured body. The lavish dolls, smiling beatifically, were everything that Mamie wasn’t: peaceful, hopeful, eternally young and beautiful.

There were always four or five of the miniature virgins on display, placed high on the top of a tall piece of furniture, to be seen but not touched. The dolls watched over the bad marriages, all of them in varying stages of deterioration. No matter how savagely the couples ripped into each other’s damaged psyches and broken hearts, the perfect brides kept smiling.

With the wounded shrew shouting expletives in the background, the children were whisked off to various areas in my aunt’s house for unscheduled naps. Thumb in my mouth and clutching my doll with my free hand, I was led to a back bedroom by my mom.

Since I’d eaten only a potato chip or two before the floor show, I was hungry. The sickening sugary taste of the crème de menthe that grandma Mamie had spoon-fed us lingered, resulting in a bit of a headache.

I could hear Nat King Cole singing in the background, the volume undoubtedly turned up in order to drown out the shouting of obscenities. His silky yet masculine voice provided a bit of comfort: “Have yourself a merry little Christmas, make the Yuletide gay.”

CHAPTER 3
               

Another unforgettable adventure took place before we moved to a new neighborhood, an incident that resulted in my first dance with celebrity.

The cemetery grounds abutted our dead-end street, the two separated only by a shallow gully. An older neighbor kid convinced me to go down to the edge of the cemetery with him, where children were forbidden to go.

On our way to the resting place of the dead, Davey and I enjoyed our daily encounter with the milkman. On days like that one, when the temperature flirted with one hundred degrees and the humidity was unbearable, the gregarious milkman offered each of us a big chunk of ice.

“What flavor will it be today, boys?” he asked, engaging in a bit of playacting.

“Cherry!” Davey said, not missing a beat.

Mr. Milkman grabbed a chunk of cherry ice, careful not to upset the bottles of white milk sparkling in the sunlight.

“Let me think,” I said, trying to imagine how a real star like Lucy would say it. “I had grape yesterday, so today it will be lemon-lime.”

Davey had already begun devouring his, sucking it with manic abandon.

I chose to savor mine, licking it slowly, relishing the fruity flavor.

“Let’s go swimming,” Davey whispered in my ear. I swear I could smell cherries on my pal’s breath.

I didn’t have a clue where this improv was going, but I played along, taking my cue from the leader.

“Last one there’s a rotten egg,” Davey teased, and he took off toward the cemetery as the milkman drove away in the opposite direction.

I was not remotely athletic, but with Davey as inspiration, my otherwise uncoordinated body took flight.

I got close enough to him to actually see drops of sweat dripping from his body. Or was it melting ice from his treat? The smell of perspiration had replaced the smell of cherries. I was clutching my ice, knowing I’d need to cool myself down when we made it to the finish line.

We arrived at our destination, saturated with sweat. Davey ripped off his shirt and rubbed his chest with what remained of his hunk of ice. “Take your shirt off,” he ordered as he playfully stuck what remained of his ice down the back of my shorts.

Far less secure than Davey, I tried to match his level of intensity by pulling my shirt off as fast as I could, while he removed his socks and tennis shoes.

“No shoes allowed in the pool,” he said. Suddenly, it dawned on me. We were going to “swim” in the gully that separated the cemetery where we weren’t allowed and the street where we were allowed. No one had said anything about the territory that was in between.

“Should I dive?” Davey asked upon arrival at the forbidden ground. “Headfirst?”

“You’re nuts,” I said, taking off my shoes and socks.

He jumped. And then he splashed me with imaginary water. “Come on in,” he said, “the water’s fine.”

Trying not to look too girly, I jumped. The ice melting in my ass crack provided some impetus. “You’ll fall on your butt,” the psychiatrist had warned. Remember?

Our “pool” was about three feet deep. Except for the sight of our heads bobbing up and down, our clandestine activities were obscured from nosy neighbors.

“Ever swim naked?” he asked. And then, moving almost in slow motion, he began taking off his plaid shorts. The “pool” had become something else now—a nightclub stage? a hotel room?—as he slowly took one leg out of his shorts and then the other. He stood directly across from me, looking me in the eyes, daring me to follow.

I unzipped my pants, certain that everyone on the block could hear the sound of the zipper as I pulled it down. We stood in our underpants, as white as milk, staring at each other. Am I hard? Is he?

“On the count of three,” he whispered. “One …”

I felt as if I was losing consciousness, like I was being transported into another world, a foreign world where another boy accepted me. “Two …”

Yep, I was hard. As hard as ice. As hot as fire. “Three …”

He was hard, too. Once we got naked, we were back in the pool, splashing and laughing.

Laughing loud. Loud enough to wake the dead.

And alert the neighbors.

The only sound that could be heard above our ecstatic gales of laughter was the wail of a siren, louder and louder, as it got closer and closer.

The screeching of tires finally brought us back to the planet as we hurriedly grabbed for our clothes.

“Don’t get dressed on our account, boys,” one of the huge cops shouted, looming above us. Then, along with his equally burly partner, he began laughing at us. Insinuating laughter, loaded with accusations.

“What will your parents have to say about their little naked jaybirds?” the biggest and the meanest one said. I swore I heard “jailbirds.”

One of the cops escorted me home; the other escorted Davey.

CHAPTER 4
               

My dad was passed out on the couch—the only person in the neighborhood who managed to sleep throughout the entire unfolding drama. The cop seemed somewhat intimidated by my dad’s demeanor; upon hearing about his son’s first nude scene on record, he almost looked as if he was going to cry.

“Just don’t let it happen again,” the cop told my dad.

“It won’t, Officer,” he said. I noticed that there was a freshly poured beer on the TV tray by the couch. It was not even noon. An ashtray overflowed with cigarette butts.

After they left, he said nothing to me. Not a word. The silent treatment—other than the sound of him inhaling a cigarette.

Exhausted, I went to the bedroom that I shared with my brother.

I attempted to re-create the morning, reliving every detail in my mind. My father was now snoring in the other room. I closed the door, making it safe to take off my underwear.

But the ones I had on weren’t my mine. They were Davey’s underpants. Terrorized by the barking policemen, we’d obviously mixed them up.

I removed them and placed them on the pillow next to my head. The smell of Davey put me to sleep.

The sound of Mommy and Daddy screaming at each other woke me up. I managed to get my/his underpants on before Mommy burst into the room.

“What in the hell were you thinking?” she screamed. She had received the headline news as she walked down the block from the bus stop, returning from work.

“You know you’re not supposed to go into that cemetery,” she yelled.

“Acting like girls, dancing on the graves of the dead,” she shrieked. “What will people think of me?”

It was always about her. Always.

The story gained momentum with each telling. I explained that our feet never set foot on the grounds of the cemetery and that we weren’t dancing; we were pretending to swim. I didn’t address the “acting like girls” detail.

My explanation made her angrier.

“Have you lost your goddamn mind? Pretending to swim? I cannot believe my goddamn ears.”

On her way out of the room, she slammed the door. “Turn that goddamn television down,” she yelled at Daddy.

I cracked the door, curious to hear what they’d say about their perverted son. What I heard instead were the ritualistic sounds that foreshadowed every evening. Refrigerator opened. Sound of ice hitting the bottom of the glass. Vodka poured onto the ice, making that crackling sound. Mommy was soothing her frazzled nerves.

While I had become inured to being the target of taunts, the response to my first nude scene was different. Because the act was considered so wicked, I felt a certain sense of importance, with everyone staring at me and talking about me incessantly.

My moment in the spotlight was far too brief. When we moved several miles away to Hanley Hills, I reverted to my lackluster self.

At seven years old, I was already a has-been.

Before my imminent comeback, I needed to make friends.

Paul, an effusive Jewish boy, lived at one end of the block. Rick, a tightly wound kid who appeared to be perfect, lived at the other end of Monroe Street.

I developed distinctly different relationships with both of them, reflected by how we played. Rick and I diligently worked on building a clubhouse with dozens upon dozens of orange crates that we’d collected from the local grocery store. Rick would patiently teach me how to do these manly things, which he must have learned from his father. We rarely spoke. Our goal—to build a one-bedroom clubhouse—required all of our attention.

Upon its completion, we planned to spend the night in domestic bliss, “like brothers.” We promised that we would become blood brothers to celebrate the first night in our dwelling. We each pricked the end of a finger so that it would draw blood, and then we held our respective fingers together for at least a minute while our blood mixed.

With our makeshift dwelling constructed and our bloody mission accomplished, it was time for Rick and me to spend the night together—all night, since we promised not to “chicken out even if it poured rain.” I remember that it was a humid Friday and I could see the stars shining through the flimsy crates that provided the roof over our heads. Our little bodies barely fit in the clubhouse, so we lay on our backs, scrunched up against each other, fully clothed and sweaty. I liked Rick in a way that I didn’t like my brother or Paul or any of the other boys in the neighborhood. I was happy that night, over-the-moon happy.

Paul and I engaged in more theatrical endeavors. Since I was a couple of years his senior, I was boss. We produced a backyard theater event that was written by, directed by, produced by and starring me.

In our sweltering basement, my mother did the cast’s makeup, while nursing a drink.

The curtain-raiser—the curtain, made out of a threadbare sheet, hung on a clothesline—was a two-character melodrama that was less than five minutes in length.

The plot involved a businessman (Paul) who visited a larger-than-life “lady” fortune-teller (guess who), who predicted that he would be killed before nightfall. As he left the dwelling of Madame Fortune-Teller, I whipped off my dress (made from green and brown flowered drapes), grabbed a knife, and attacked him from behind, stabbing him in the heart. All that was missing was the stage blood.

While the first half of the evening was meant to display my flair for drama (not to mention cross-dressing), the second half would showcase my macho charisma. I played the title role in
King Midas
.

Rather slight, this play was more about the props than the dramaturgy (and this was way before Andrew Lloyd Webber). I’d spent hours decorating plastic roses, spraying them and respraying them with blindingly gold glitter.

In a moment of sheer brilliance, a vase overflowing with red roses turned into a vase overflowing with gold roses, eliciting gasps from the audience. I’d cleverly secreted the golden bouquet under the table holding the fake flowers and managed to switch red to gold as I pretended to smell them.

Suddenly summer was over. Paul and I remained friends, united in our love of all things showbiz. I occasionally saw Rick at school, but he distanced himself from me, as if he didn’t really want to be associated with me in a public setting. I felt a bit sad, especially when I looked at the foundation of the house we’d begun constructing and knew that Rick was no longer going to be my blood brother.

My father knew Rick’s dad, which explains why he delivered the news. He rarely had anything to say to me and never anything loaded with emotion. “I have some bad news, Mike,” he said. “Your friend, Rick? I heard that he had a bad accident,” he continued. “His dad is having a hard time.”

I wanted to ask him if he’d have a hard time if I had an accident. Instead, I said, “What kind of an accident?”

“He was by himself in the basement, playing with some ropes. His mom called him to come to dinner, but he didn’t respond. After several minutes, she walked down the stairs. His father said that he had accidentally hung himself.”

I was eight years old. I could not begin to comprehend what I was hearing. “Is he okay?” I asked.

“No, Mike,” my dad said, “he’s not okay. He’s dead.”

Dead. I did not let my father know the feelings that were happening inside of me. I walked away, heading for the backyard. Dead, like I’d never see him again? Dead, like our neighbor’s dog was dead? Dead, like Rick would be put in a cemetery, like the one at the end of the street?

It was almost winter, so our makeshift cabin had endured the ravages of several storms and it had begun to snow a few days prior. I practically ran to the place where we had slept that Friday night, even though the cold ground was covered with a fresh bed of snow.