The Truth is Bad Enough: What Became of the Happy Hustler? (36 page)

“She has a fever,” Cronin said to me—not melodramatically but it wasn’t musical comedy time either. I am the worst parent in the world, I thought. In a hotel room in North Carolina, on the first leg of my tour, and my little baby girl had a fever.

“Will you spend the night with her? I don’t want her to be alone.” Of course he would spend the night with her. I would toss and turn in my guilt, all night, waiting for morning (considering the time difference) so that I could check on her.

I’d mapped out the tour so that I’d never be away more than three or four days at a time, but it was excruciating to think that she was in any kind of danger. You hear stories on the news about the flu that suddenly kills an otherwise healthy kid. Why was I on the road? Why did I feel the overpowering yearning to put myself through the rigors—emotionally, physically, spiritually—of doing a show that was difficult to pull off when it premiered twenty years before?

Oh, yeah, that’s why I was doing it: because twenty years later, I could. In spite of inexorable neuropathy and obstinate depression; in spite of the cruel wear and tear; in spite of fifteen years of single parenting; in spite of HIV and hep C; in spite of all the deaths and heartbreaks and memorials and insecurities: I could do it. I was reclaiming myself, setting sail on a quixotic dream that I must make true.

And yet it felt like I had abandoned the most important part of my life: family. It’s all out of proportion when you’re alone in a hotel room, trying to make sense of things on cell phones with poor reception. By the next morning, Tia had improved and the show went on.

And the tour was a triumph, on so many levels. I returned yet again to my welcoming hometown of St. Louis, saw my name up on the marquee of the Biograph Theater in Chicago and revisited the dingy but mighty Wings Theater in the West Village.

On the road, I crowed about my daughter attending the prestigious L.A. County High School for the Arts, even though, from very early on, Tia did not seem to fully embrace the school’s insider philosophy and grueling regimen. I had decided to put the Mr. Mom/Volunteer Extraordinaire persona that I’d cultivated at FSC (Foundations School Community) on hold. When I did sign up to help with a few events, I found the vibe to be a bit too Hollywood for an institution that defined itself as an “arts school.” There were some overzealous stage moms; that’s for certain—another role that I’d learned not to play with Tia.

When the tour landed in L.A. and performed locally at USC (University of Southern California), Tia finally was able to really experience me doing my solo work: the characters that I’m best known for performing. This was yet another reason for me to have accomplished the tour, even though Tia is discomforted by watching me act.

There are two things that Tia doesn’t like to watch me do: cry and act. Perhaps these activities are not daddy-like; maybe—even though she shuns gender stereotyping—these are feminine indulgences. Mommies lose control of their emotions and cry, not daddies. Mommies put their emotions on display and become actresses, not dads.

I imagine that it’s my vulnerability that’s unnerving. When she first saw me on television, it was when
Life Goes On
—shot before she was born—popped up on television. She must have been five or six. She couldn’t reconcile the me on the television with the daddy-me in the room with her.

Years later, I think that her discomfort with me as an actor had to do with her ownership of me. I was her property, not the audience’s. Plus there’s the extravagance of emotion that I put forth. She is not the only one who is put off by my particular (acting) style.

There have been times when I have been determined to display my disquieting vulnerability, determined to let her know that I am allowed to be mommy, too. This is part of my duality: unclog the garbage disposal one day, then cry like a hormonally challenged madwoman the next.

“Would you be disappointed if I decided not to act?” she asked. I didn’t know if this was a response to LACHSA or simply Tia’s asserting her independence; in some odd way—like with many offspring of actors—it was simply assumed she’d follow that jaundiced brick road.

I defended myself vociferously, saying to my friend, “I’ve never said anything to indicate that I would be disappointed if Tia didn’t become an actress. Did I?”

One of my no-nonsense pals answered, “It’s not necessarily what you say but how you behave, the signals that you’ve been giving her.”

Oh, fuck, busted again. I did look critically at my behavior—from her first gig as a toddler at the STAGE event to her star turns at FSC—and had to admit that there was some part of me that wanted her to act. But there was another part of me that did not want her to endure the indignities that come with being an actress.

We talked about it at length. Ironically, as she was winding up her first year at LACHSA, she was invited back to FSC to play Hook in
Peter Pan
: a role that I repeatedly told her I should have played. What drew her to the idea of doing a play at FSC was the familial aspect of the theater; she would be back with some of her friends who idolized her. And she loved “playing” with these kids—a contrast to the competitiveness that seemed to permeate the LACHSA paradigm.

What pissed me off was LACHSA’s attitude toward Tia being excused from certain classes so that she could attend
Peter Pan
rehearsals, even though LACHSA kids were routinely let out of school to shoot commercials or film or television appearances. It galled me to think that her desire to play Hook was not taken seriously. Eventually—after much ridiculous back-and-forth—it was agreed that her schedule would accommodate her guest artist appearance.

The relationship between a daddy-actor and his child would become even more illuminated when I began my theatrical journey with Alex Davis, the daughter-to-son trans child of Brad Davis.

CHAPTER 69
               

“I first met you during a workshop for Rise Up and Shout!, a performance project benefiting and showcasing LGBT youth in the artistic community,” Alex Davis recalls. “When I saw you do one of your monologues at the workshop, I was very moved. I could tell you loved acting, lived for it.

“When it was suggested I work with you on a sort of one-man show / concert piece, one that included monologues about my life, I was reluctant. ‘I loathe acting, Michael,’ I told you. ‘Loathe it.’ But I was willing to try something new onstage to get people’s attention, giving them a good dose of my music while I had them.

“In addition to being trans and having a new point of view to offer in that arena, I had something else going for me if I was willing to open my mouth. I had a father with a powerful story, whom many would remember: actor Brad Davis. I had never wanted to talk about my dad, or my relationship with him, onstage; however, the time had come when I was willing to do it if it meant helping me move forward in entertainment.

“You pointed out that this show could be seen as an opportunity to do something original, something no one other artist was doing. No one else had a story like mine and audiences love new, invigorating stories. People want to relate to the person onstage in the deepest and most universal way possible and I had clearly been holding back. You made me question what I truly had to give and how much of it I was willing to offer up. I saw that if I worked hard at this endeavor, I might be able to contribute a useful piece of art to the world, which in my heart of hearts is what I really wanted to do.

“And if I was to do it, I needed the help of someone who understood how closely I guarded my family and my transition and who knew how to share the truth without overstepping one’s own boundaries. I needed someone with finesse who I could trust to keep my confidences. You proved to be that person.”

How could I possibly have not been attracted to the idea of working with the trans offspring of Brad Davis? The crosscurrents of cultural identification were a precursor that made my teaming with Alex almost inevitable.

Alex, then Alexandra, was eight years old when Brad died, when I went on national television, seated next to his mother (Susan Bluestein) and revealed my HIV status. Although I didn’t know Brad—I had interviewed him when he did an adaptation of Kafka’s
Metamorphosis
in 1982, the year before Alexandra was born—I felt a deep kinship with him. The tragedy that was Brad Davis resounded in me and those reverberations became part of my intense relationship with Alex.

Because Brad was a sex symbol who appealed to gay men (have you seen
Querelle
lately?) and died of AIDS, conjecture about his sexual preference was almost as popular as conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination.

He hustled during his “early days in New York,” Alex said, ambivalently, and he was an addict before he got clean in 1981. I was far more interested in Brad Davis, the father who died prematurely in a town that did not shelter him, than I was in what he did in bed or how he contracted the malicious virus.

And Alex, whose resemblance to his father is striking, seemed to be uncovering new territory in Hollywood and elsewhere by embracing the trans revolution as part of his story without dismissing the power of his father’s influence. The wrenching question for Alex, and those who see his inspired musicianship, remains: How would Brad have integrated the gender change of the girl he showered with frilly dresses? Would they have become gym mates?

While I was dealing with my sixteen-year-old as a so-called AIDS survivor, the poignancy of Brad and Alex—and let’s not forget his supportive mother—was a story that consumed me throughout most of 2010. I identified with so many intricacies of the plotline but most emphatically with the idea that I, like Brad, may leave my child earlier than either of us would like.

To acknowledge that a father-son motif emerged was stating the obvious; how could it not? Alex referred to me as “the professor”—an expression of endearment I continue to cherish. This was not unlike other theatrical excursions I’d embarked on that tended to mirror aspects of real life: the commingling juiciness of art.

I’m certainly not suggesting that the AIDS situation in Hollywood is as bleak as it was at the time of Brad’s death, but I believe that Brad, Tia, Alex and I share queer happenstance: a sense of impermanence that haunts. In many ways, Alex provided me with arteries of understanding about my child’s predicament: living our lives in public and out loud. Like Alex, Tia did not choose to be the child of a man whose life was and is an open book.

When Tia came home and announced that one of her teachers at LACHSA had been in a porno movie, I lost my breath momentarily. I knew what was coming: “Have you ever been in a porno movie, Daddy?”

CHAPTER 70
               

The rumor circulating at Tia’s school was that one of her teachers had done porn and that, ineluctably, led to her speculation that I may have been in a porn flick. Should I lie? After a moment of breathlessness, during which I considered whether or not to dodge this—how, other than being duplicitous?—I said, “Yes.”

The pause that followed was almost as long as my screen time in
L.A. Tool & Die
. These Big Questions are often asked with the deliberate choice to avoid eye contact. I’m often at the computer, and Tia could be as far off as her room, making a commentary or asking a question loud enough for the neighbors to hear.

Finally, she said, purposefully matter-of fact: “Well, it’s great that you were so comfortable with your body.” End of discussion. Finis. Curtain.

The apartment where we live is in the flatlands of hip Los Feliz, serves up with a view of the Observatory from Tia’s bedroom window. Then there’s the landing adjacent to our front door, which provides a vista that fluctuates with the seasons and morphs beguilingly from a.m. to p.m.

“It’s like we live in the clouds,” Tia says, marveling at the fluffy formations that do seem to envelop us in gradations of swirling powder blues. We have seen luminous rainbows—even double rainbows—from this scenic perch. And once, we were stunned by the fullness of a moon that seemed unreal; blindingly bright and so near to our building that it seemed as if we could reach out and touch it. As it turned out, it was a Hollywood moon, magically projected into the night sky from the Talmadge Studios a couple of blocks away.

There are scenes that aren’t so celestially drawn; in truth, some hellish verbal marathons erupt. My daughter is much more adept at putting on the brakes, retreating to a reasonable tone, while I escalate to high-pitched proportions. Somewhere in these battles (usually one forgets what “started” it), hurtful words are exchanged. We both know where to strike, shredding each other’s heartstrings. Then the regret. Tia goes numb, resolutely mute. Only a few times, she’s said that she hates me; more often, she projects that I hate her (“You sound like you hate me—everything I do”).

How can we take this drama back? How can we start over? Push rewind and delete this scene?

I cry. Then I sob—for both of us, since she remains dry-eyed. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. Anything. I worry about you. I don’t want to leave you. I’m afraid to die; afraid that I’ll die.”

All these words fall out of my mouth, cascading, spiraling, making no sense, having nothing to do with any shred of the argument.

Tia winds up comforting me. Who is the child? We hold each other. I heave. “I love you, Daddy. I know you love me. I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“I love you, too, Tia; love, love, love, love, love, love you.”

All other love pales: no man, no friend, no audience, no blood relative.

While I do feel more motherly than fatherly in particular situations, I am not narcissistic enough to overblow my importance and underplay the loss that Tia has begun to confront, especially in recent years.

In what typifies the robotic and inhumane communication of the Twenty-First-century, Tia’s birth mother asked my daughter to be her “friend” on Facebook. Since Tia insists that “she is not my mother,” she made it clear—twice; not once, but twice—that she did not want to be her Facebook “friend.”