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to do the things you want to do once you find them.”
-Jim Croce
He died in a plane crash at the age of 30.
Today is Tuesday. I am supposed to be in your inbox with this piece of insightful prose, but I ran out of time. After returning from a four-day work trip to Scotland and the ensuing brief recovery period, during which dog food supply was replenished and groceries were put in cabinets. I hit the road again, yesterday, which was Monday. I gathered up my belongings and got on a flight to Washington D.C. with the full intention of finishing these thoughts on the plane.
I got out the laptop, determined to write, in spite of my drooping eyelids and impossible-to-stifle yawns, but the focus puller inside my brain went on strike. I closed the book and let myself drift off. I set an alarm for 60 minutes, which, when it rang, was met with my dismay and promptly disengaged. I slept 31/2 hours out of the 41/2 it took to get from Los Angeles to Raleigh-Durham. (I have been to Raleigh but never Durham. Is there a Durham? There would have to be, I suppose, but you could not prove it by me.) By the time I made the connecting flight, I had surrendered the idea of getting any work done. When the stewardess asked me if I would like something to drink, I said:
“Yes. Thank you. A Chardonnay please.”
I have been thinking about time lately. This may be because I seem to have had a shortage of it in recent days. I feel like I am running to keep up and yet falling, falling behind. This is just a feeling, of course. In the main, things are getting done--well, mostly. I have missed a step here and there, this essay being a prime example. And then there was this:
It was in Europe that it came to my attention that I forgot to pad upstairs and place a rent check in the mailbox outside the door of the building’s managers. Dang it. I am always, always on time; I pay the rent on the first day of every month like clockwork. It just got overlooked. Oddly, check is the only form of payment they will accept. I could have called in a credit card number or handled it in any one of the newfangled ways that we exchange funds these days, but no. They needed a check. This meant that I was not on time. I WAS LATE, and I hate that.
Time.
A four-day trip to and from the U.K. promised to be, and was, a travel challenge, one I am always ready to accept. I love tricking time into doing my bidding. I am determined to find ways to outsmart it and avoid the attendant jet lag and physical disturbances that can accompany such long journeys. My three rules for surviving and thriving while enduring nearly 18 to 20 or more hours of travel time are:
1. Don’t look at your watch. Whatever time it is where you are in flight and when you land … that is what time it is. Period.
2. Don’t go to sleep. Stay up until bedtime in your new time zone. One 45-minute nap is allowable, but no more.
3. Do not stress about being tired. Being a bit tired is okay. You will catch up and feel just fine if you follow rules 1 and 2. Stressing about being tired is making you more tired. Lighten up. You will survive. It’s only life.
The (A)Theory) of time posits that time exists, whether or not there are any observers to confirm this reality.
The (B) Theory) states that time only exists because we believe that it does and observe the passing of it and document that accordingly.
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER.
I have heard stories of people being visited by their loved ones who have passed, where the departed insists that there is no such thing as time. This is a common pearl of wisdom that is imparted from the great beyond to us mere mortals via mediums and seers.
“There is no such thing as time.” Our loved ones admonish from the shrouds of mystery surrounding the disappearance of their mortal being. All-righty then.
Don’t get me wrong; I want to believe them.
I am a believer, sort of, a believer of sorts.
After the passing of my beloved dog Roxy, I hired a pet communicator to help me speak with her and work through my grief.
“It is time,” The doctor had said with an assuring mix of authority and empathy. “She has lived well beyond her expected years. She needs you to let her go now.”
“I have loved you so much,” I repeated over and over as the medication spread through her system, taking her from me.
I guess I just needed to make sure that she understood, so I hired Susan to talk to her. The communicator assured me that Roxy knew I loved her. She told the medium the exact time that she had begun to bleed internally (which was incredibly accurate). Then came an odd question from the woman:
“Has your stomach been bothering you? Roxy says you have been in pain.”
“Huh. Yes,” I answered. “I mean I have been having cramps and pains. I have been to a doctor about it, and they are running tests.”
“Stop drinking coffee. Roxy says it’s the coffee that’s making you sick.”
My dog did not get into any of the existential topics that seem to accompany human visitations. She said she knew when and why she died and gave me health advice. Not a peep about the concept of time being real or a fabrication.
So it was that I gave up coffee because dear dead dog told me to. A believer, like I said. I drink tea now, and I am okay with that, and I do, in fact, feel better and direct my thanks skyward to my lovely old pup. I think of her every time I brew a pot.
So, time. There are so many conflicting messages about it.
“Do it while there is still time!” (Hurry! This sale, this day, this LIFE of yours won’t last!)“He had too much time on his hands!” (And now look what’s happened.)“No time like the present.” (Our dearly departed take exception to this.)“Always be on time!” (Miss Manners, now Ms., says so.)“They are in a different time zone.” (Evidence of the distance between us.)“His time had come.” (92 or no, my dad was not particularly welcoming of that idea.)
CARPE DIEM.
Time is weird. We, as a species, are woefully preoccupied with it.
For instance, there are a gajillion self-help books on how to manage it. Time-management is a thing—an important thing, we are repeatedly told. The wise and efficient use of one’s time is one of the keys to a successful life. (Whatever that is. A successful life? How exactly do we measure that?)
So, time, which may or may not exist, has been giving me fits. My “management skills” are found to be wanting. My attempts to trick it and skip a day or so of sleep flamed out in Row three on DL 659 when exhaustion won the hour—or hours as it were. Deciding how best to spend my time, the time I have left on this earthly plane, is complicated.
Time may not be real, but at the age of 65, I have lost enough loved ones to know that death is one thing we can be absolutely sure of. If I am crazy lucky and match my Pop’s endurance record, that would give me about 27 years left in this joint. After this last very impactful birthday, I was curious about how I would be moving through life going forward. Would I want to do less, pull back, be more meditative? Apparently not. Full speed ahead seems to be the current trajectory.
There may come a day when I just want to sit back and watch the world go by, but for now, I am enjoying being engaged in a variety of professional pursuits. I am hardwired to achieve. This has been my M.O. from the get-go, and that is all well and good, but I am aware that I need to make more time to nourish my spirit side, to meditate, and pray, and dream.
What do I really want? How best to spend these remaining years? I am only beginning to wonder and have no set answers. The one thing I know I want: to sometimes just … be.
To make time for time, while there is still time.
On we go …
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Mirror, Mirror
mardi 1 octobre 2024 • Durée 09:41
Wit and Wisdom
by Beth Broderick
I have lived with Fairness the rescue pup for going on six months now. I will grant you that a lot of that time has been spent away. Even when one is filming in Los Angeles, the hours of work outside of the home are long and many. I started a production two days after he settled in as my guy. He was technically a foster, but I don’t play with that kind of thing. Once he arrived, he was mine. He could have chewed through my entire wardrobe and puked it up in my bed and I would still claim him. Once he set foot in my place, he was home.
Fortunately, he is a gentle giant. Would not harm anyone or anything. He would have to be pushed to the limit to react with violence. In that regard I have won the “rescue dog” lottery. Still in spite of all the travel and time away, we have slept in the same bed, occupied the same routines, and lived closely enough for me to observe a disturbing fact.
He is eerily similar to me in many ways. He has many of the same traits that I possess, the same oddities of persona. We both do battle regularly with the perceived unrealities that can, if we let them, overtake our more rational minds.
This dog is in my hunt.
First, in the physical sense, he is tall and lean like me. In the mental zone, has PTSD and sees ghosts, responds to errant noises with the same instant terror. Like me he also has an over-developed startle response. A weird crackle, a raised arm, a car backfiring—any number of things can set us off. We cringe, we leap back, we duck for.
He is also, like me, deeply fond of a faux-fur blanket. He is so in love with the one on my bed that he has claimed it for his own. I have to plead for a small corner of it to tuck into at night. It is still too warm for either of us to need one, but we are both comforted by the feel of it--the glorious imposter material against our bodies. I once threw it onto the bed warm from the dryer and he rolled in it, talking to it for the better part of an hour. The piece is his now. I have made a note to order another one. There are times when we both need the comfort.
I remember lying in bed next to him, and thinking hard about why my PTSD was acting up, robbing me of my sleep and filling my mind with unnerving thoughts. It is often really hard to know what has triggered me. Sometimes I discover the culprit later: “Oh, that’s right. That man on La Cienega screamed and threw punches in the air; that car almost collided with me; that woman was mean to her child.” That night, lying beside Fairness as his body twitched and pawed at the nightmares haunting his dreams. I figured it out.
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Lost and Found
mardi 17 septembre 2024 • Durée 07:51
Wit and Wisdom
by Beth Broderick
LOST.
It started gradually enough. There was just a pesky hair missing here and there. No big deal, but in the last year there has been a mass exodus. My eyebrows have fucked off. They are so few and so pale that I cannot leave the house without a quick once-over with a pencil. Of course, those only come in colors like brown and weird taupe, orange-y hues that no longer match my silvery/white visage, so finding the right shade has been a daunting task.
This same phenomenon happened to my mother. Her eyebrows also just got up and left her face one day. She was part American Indian and had no body hair to speak of, but for most of her years she had a nice set of fringe framing her big brown eyes. When they disappeared, she tried for a while to set things right. Her eyesight was bad even with glasses; add to that she could not wear them and also decorate her brows, so she just got out the makeup mirror, put the eyewear aside, and decided to wing it. Now, the only pencil she had was a black eyeliner, so as you can imagine, the result was no bueno. It looked like large black caterpillars had attached themselves to her forehead, which, framed by her white hair (always stained yellow in places from nicotine), made for a somewhat startling image. This period was short-lived and, when she surrendered her makeup routine entirely, she was the more beautiful because of it. She never gave up smoking, so her hair was always streaked, but she was, in spite of all of that, lovely. She was not so nice at times, but she was, till the last, a looker.
Yeah, no. I am not going to surrender my own beauty routine quite yet. So while I am still searching for the right shade, I am making do by mixing charcoal and taupe, filling in the gaps above my eyes, and hoping for the best.
FOUND.
I just didn’t feel right leaving them out. My mother had been so crazy protective about her “jewels.” Mom was not a planner. She cashed out every employee pension she ever had. There were several. She was a nurse who later became a quality assurance director. Hospital people move around. She apparently thought there would be no need for those funds in her future, so she bought stuff, mostly jewelry. It was her great passion, though nothing matched her love of cigarettes and champagne. She loved her silver and gold; it was her stated reason for refusing to let us have anyone to help out when she was dying. She held the conviction that any health aide we might employ would somehow find their way to her portable safe, break into the thing and take her prized possessions.
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Whirly Wind
jeudi 5 septembre 2024 • Durée 09:52
Wit and Wisdom
by Beth Broderick
On Sunday, I was still trying to climb out of the fog of exhaustion that was clouding my thoughts. Having concluded a series of night shoots at 3 AM in Montreal, I finally made it to bed at around 4:15. I then awakened at 9 AM on the same day in order to pack and head to the airport. At my asking I was on a Delta flight which had a layover in Detroit. Yes, there are many direct flights on Air Canada and such, but Delta is MY airline, the one I always choose to fly, so the extra two hours of travel time would have to be endured.
On Sunday I decided to head to my sisters’ house. I missed them and was craving a dip. They have recently completed the installation of a gorgeous swimming pool. (It was a true feat of endurance, which tried their patience and frayed their nerves for the better part of a year, but both would say it was worth all the trouble, time and treasure required.) I thought the exercise might help me to get a good night’s rest. I have trouble sleeping when I am overtired, too stimulated or too raggedy or what have you, so this was my solution. I looked forward to writing the following day in order to stay on our summer schedule of every other Tuesday.
The first thing to put the kibosh on this plan was the discovery, upon being greeted by the girls, that the day was, in fact, Monday. I had lost Sunday altogether, with no idea where it went. After a delightful swim, I dried off and headed in to change. My sister was re-wrapping herself in a towel on her way back to the pool. I was chilled by the blast of air inside her well-cooled home, so I stopped her.
“Lolo, can I borrow that towel? I am freezing and I don’t know what I did with mine.”
“You can have this if you want it, but yours is on your head, sis.”
I reached up and sure enough, there was my towel, on my head. I was losing track of more than just days. Whole objects were disappearing into the haze. I dried off and changed into street clothes, then polished off a small dish of potato salad, the latter a ritual offering from Laura. She knows that I love the stuff and would never think to buy it. I determined that I could go home and write for a few hours and still possibly get the piece to Eric to edit, then Rebecca to polish and format, and lastly to Tucker to record the audio.
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"Rescue Me" The series. Chapter Five (continued): "Headless in Romania: Part 2"
mardi 20 août 2024 • Durée 11:55
Wit and Wisdom
by Beth Broderick
Michael was worried about me in Romania. I was having a very hard time, and he had rarely known me to be so deeply depressed. After our conversation he hung up the phone, leapt into action, and called his airline to book some flights (Yes, those of us who travel often for work all have an airline to which we are fiercely loyal—“our” airline. It doesn’t matter if they are the best or have the best options … it matters that they know us and can be counted on to help us out in a pinch … like, say, for instance, when one of our close pals is having a complete meltdown in a foreign county and we need to get there ASAP.) My airline is Delta; Mike’s is American. They quickly got him sorted, so he packed a bag and headed to JFK airport. He had a busy schedule, but as an independent producer, he figured he could rearrange things on the way. He flew to London that evening and made his way to Romania the next day.
When he told me he was in the country I almost dropped the phone as I doubled over with relief and felt the first wave of joy I had known in quite some time. I had about ten days left of filming when Michael arrived. He had made arrangements to stay for five of them. He is a producer of films as well as Broadway and Off- Broadway shows, and that was what he could manage.
When he arrived, he came straight to me on the set and stayed until I finished shooting for the day. Then we got into the car from production and headed back to my hotel room while it was still light enough to see our surroundings. It was a long, dusty drive, during which our vehicle impatiently shared the road with horse-drawn carts and heavily laden mules. There was not much else to see on the way back to the city, but as the light began to wane, the sky turned a gorgeous crimson. Had it always done so? Had I never noticed?
I was not on the filming schedule for the following day, which meant I could spend some desperately needed alone time with my pal and also that we could have a night of it without worrying about an early call. He was starving, and a few places were still open, so we found a restaurant near the hotel and sat down to eat.
“What are you doing?” he asked at one point. “With your food?”
He had watched as I discreetly (I thought) wrapped up most of the contents of my plate in a napkin and stowed them in my purse.
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"Rescue Me" The series. Chapter Five: "Headless in Romania"
mardi 6 août 2024 • Durée 11:13
Wit and Wisdom
by Beth Broderick
I am not one hundred percent sure, but I believe it was 2006 when I got on a plane and headed overseas to shoot a horror movie (my one and only horror movie). I was the villain in a quite well-written and demanding role in what I thought was most likely a good script. I couldn’t read it. Not the whole thing anyway. Every time I got to a really harrowing moment I would have to put the script in a drawer in the kitchen. I could not sleep with it nearby. I couldn’t get through some of the more graphic scenes. My PTSD would not allow it, so I just focused on my part.
I had my hairdresser do a temporary brown rinse to hide my obviously well-tended highlights and asked her to trim my hair with her eyes closed. I wanted to make it look like I did my own hair with ordinary shears. My character lived off the grid; she was definitely not a glamour gal.
Before leaving for Romania, I had to meet with the special effects team to have a rubber replica of my head taken so they could make a believable version of it that could be cut off. Yes, the script called for it, and that was the plan. To cut off my head.
It’s a living.
This was achieved by running a breathing tube from my nose to the side of my neck, which was my only source of oxygen when they encased my noggin in goo that would take what felt like an eternity to harden up. Not for the claustrophobic, that procedure. I had to summon up some long-forgotten meditations to get through it. I made a vow to myself that I would get back to yoga class. They were a nice enough crew of folks and that made me hopeful that we would have a calm, happy set.
The movie was supposed to take place in Appalachia, and the Romanian countryside is a pretty good match for that. Labor is cheap, or it was then, and there were no pesky safety measures needed or union rules to follow, so a few brave souls had ventured over there to film. It was becoming a hot(ish) spot for Americans looking to shoot movies on the cheap. There was a studio of sorts just outside of Bucharest, but to describe it as rudimentary would be generous. I have heard the whole place has spiffed up quite a bit in the ensuing years.
When we arrived, the country was still reeling from the chaotic and ruthless rule of dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu and his equally brutal and ignorant wife, Elena. The pair systematically broke the economy, ransacked the country’s resources to build a useless palace, and crushed any and all opposition. Their foreign policy chafed even their Russian comrades, and Romania found itself growing increasingly poor and isolated. When the people took to the streets, Nicolae ordered the military to mow them down. The military obliged at first, but ultimately joined the people and arrested the Czar and his wife. A speedy trial was held, which was a mere formality because everyone wanted blood—their blood. It was not long before the two were marched out to face a firing squad.
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Big Boy and Boo Boo Drove Me To It ...
mardi 23 juillet 2024 • Durée 12:22
Wit and Wisdom
by Beth Broderick
I am going to press pause on the “Rescue Me” series to bring you a special report about very, very ordinary me.
After a considerable amount of time, close to two years without an automobile in Los Angeles, I have at last heard the siren call of the vehicular wind and purchased a car.
It had to be done.
Firstly, there is the matter of the now 80-pounds and growing rescue pup. The one and only Fairness Broderick who has to be transported to things like the vet appointments and someday, hopefully sooner than later, the groomer. His new trainer also leads a “pack-walk” a drivable distance away with a bunch of her clients, which we are excited to attend. There are occasions where the pup needs to be transported, and there was a clear reluctance to do so, on the part of the Lyft and Uber drivers I tried to summon toward this end. Turns out they are not that keen on having a giant, rather serious looking pooch in their personal motion machine.
He really does look like a formidable, possibly scary dog. When we walk down the street people see us coming, and clutch their pocket dogs, hoisting them out of what they perceive as harm’s way. As if I would just blithely amble down the street with a “killer” dog and put their teensy pups’ lives on the line. Fairness is a gentle giant, would not hurt a flea, and I get that they do not know this, but to panic at the sight of him seems a bit much. If he was dangerous, I would have him on a Gentle Leader or some other apparatus that would prevent him from doing harm. I am not going to walk by you and let my dog take out Bipsy or whatever your snaggle toothed darling might be called.
Yesterday, a man saw us walking up behind he and his wife, and he shoved her to the left in order to stand between us and guard her from Fairness. As if I am just heading down the road fixing’ to let my dog take a whack at someone’s wife. As if I call out to my pooch in the morning:
“Fairness, let's saddle up and get out there. We’ve got toy poodles to kill and loved ones to attack.”
Silly, ridiculous, but I guess we Americans are having a hard time trusting one another these days.
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"Rescue Me" The series. Chapter Four: "Walta"
mardi 9 juillet 2024 • Durée 09:57
Wit and Wisdom
by Beth Broderick
How Walta found her way to us is anybody’s guess. MOMENTUM had been in existence for the better part of two years before she became a client. Walta was in the middle of transitioning when an AIDS diagnosis made a mockery of all of her plans, as it did for the plans of any and all who received one.
Life expectancy was six to eight months once an opportunistic infection got the immune disorder rolling. The only viable plan was made with one’s doctors in the hope of survival. AIDS mostly affected young men and women. When told they had been infected, not one of them believed that they might actually die. A twenty-year-old just cannot grasp the concept.
Peter Avitabile and I co-founded the program, which would become known as MOMENTUM, with a handful of other volunteers in December of 1984. It would be a minute before doctors knew what to call the phenomenon of “Gay Men’s Cancer,” and it took years before we decided upon a name for our organization. We were all flying blind.
Our program offered a sit-down dinner in the basement of midtown Manhattan’s St. Peter’s Church. We had volunteer chefs who cooked in the big industrial kitchen there, and folks like me who traversed the city scrounging up donations of food and other necessities. I always visited a bunch of guys in the wholesale vegetable district on my rounds. They did not really understand the crisis, but they knew the “church lady” as they called me, said young people were sick and hungry. That was enough. They gave generously. They gave every time.
Isolation was a huge problem for folks living with what we all now call HIV/AIDS. So the meal was a chance to convene with others; to be a part of the world. There was almost always entertainment as many Broadway performers lent their voices to our evenings. This thrilled the folks who came to dine and, in the middle of such heartbreak, it was a huge gift to all of us. The night that the great Barbara Cook came to sing for us, the room was packed with clients, all of them emaciated, deeply unwell, many clutching flowers they had brought to give her. I weep to this day remembering her kindness after the show as she sat with each person one by one, accepting their flowers and giving them a piece of her heart.
She was a hero, one of the many I encountered then. I am double blessed to have met more than my fair share of extraordinary humans.
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"Rescue Me" The series. Chapter Three: "Lovely Violets"
mardi 25 juin 2024 • Durée 11:54
Wit and Wisdom
by Beth Broderick
I did it on a dare.
It started in January of 1982. I was 22 years old and struggling to stay afloat in New York City. I had moved to the Big Apple in 1979, hoping for a big theater career, but had not gained much traction. I was waiting tables and scratching around trying to be serious, but not really knowing how. I worked at a restaurant in the theater district called J.R. The chef was Barry, but most of us called him Baaaar with a long “a” so it sounded like “bear.” He was “the bear” long before the fictional character of the same name who is captivating audiences on HULU these days. His best friend Harvey (Harv) was on point as the host.
I applied for a position well before the doors swung open to receive customers, the bulk of which would turn out to be folks trying to grab a bite before whichever show they had plans to see. We also became popular too among many of the performers who made their way to the stage. Jennifer Holliday, the original Effie in Dreamgirls, used to come by often, as did many of her castmates. There were a lot of people from the cast of Nine who dined with us regularly as well.
I was a good waitress, from a technical standpoint. Fast on my feet, with a dependable memory. I knew exactly who ordered what and how to serve it to them efficiently. I was also wild. I challenged customers to push-up contests during off hours, used the railing against the south wall of the place as a kind of makeshift ballet bar. I was definitely not a subscriber to the notion that “the customer is always right.” A lot of times the customer was rude, demanding, or lascivious, and I wasn’t the picture of tact when it came to coping with those behaviors.
Once, a man seated at a large table was trying to establish himself as the alpha boss of all thing’s dinner. He kept pointing at me from across the room with a menacing finger and shouting:
“Waitress! Hey you! Waitress. Over here!! Hey waitress!!!
I had taken that table’s order and turned it in to the kitchen, supplied everyone with drinks and a few baskets of bread piled high with pumpernickel rolls and sourdough sticks. They didn’t need anything more; he just wanted a preponderance of attention. He was showing off for the rest of his party. When I had had enough of his abusive behavior, I marched over to the table and said loudly for all to hear:
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"Rescue Me" The series. Chapter Two: "V"
mardi 11 juin 2024 • Durée 09:30
Wit and Wisdom
by Beth Broderick
Many years ago, I was walking down the hallway of an elite women’s day spa. I had already changed into my plush robe and slippers, and savored a cup of chamomile tea in the cozy lounge. I was heading to a treatment room when a woman pointed at me and doubled over in shock. She kept screaming:
“It’s you, Oh my Lord! It’s you!!!”
It took me a minute because the whole scene was so out of context, but I soon realized the woman was “V”.
“Oh my God! V! You look amazing! How are you?”
I hugged her tight as she began to cry in earnest. There was an avalanche of emotion coming from her, as if she was keening. Doors began opening as women, who were sporting green goo masks and such, responded to her cries and made their way into the hall. We all stood around her and tried to soothe as she explained our history.
I had met V when I was a member of the “City Light Women’s Rehabilitation Program Celebrity Action Council,” which is a name that only a bunch of well-meaning “celebrities” could come up with. A giant, ridiculous word salad of a title, but that’s what the committee decided on.
You gotta love a committee. I held my tongue.
The program was, and most likely still is, an outreach effort by the Los Angeles Mission in downtown L.A. Women were/are offered a place to stay and food to eat if they are willing to undergo rehab and religious education, then, of course, job training and life-skills classes, etc. All of this was designed to help the residents begin or return to productive lives. This was the late late 90s, early 2000s, and the homeless problem was not as enormous then as it is now, but it was sizable. The streets of most of America’s cities have always been temporary campgrounds for folks with nowhere else to go.
This points to the fact that all of our efforts to contain and curtail the issue have profoundly failed, but that is a topic for another day. The one thing all of the experts will tell you is that nearly every person on the streets has experienced serious trauma, and most began to self-medicate for lack of any other way to cope.
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“Oh, wow,” I thought. “His PTSD is triggering my PTSD. Huh!”
It is most often the case that, once I identify what has set me off, the PTSD begins to subside. Like a stubborn child seeking attention, once it’s been acknowledged with care, the condition will usually put itself to bed.
“I think Fairness is my mirror animal,” I said to my friend Jeff one afternoon. “He is so much like me, it’s almost confronting.”
“I think it’s supposed to be,” Jeff replied. “Sometimes we are given pets who force us to bring to light aspects of our shadow nature. As we confront issues with our dogs, we are encouraged to face the same issues in ourselves.”
Jeff has a rescue dog named Ida. She has a good heart, but like my Fairness, she shows many signs of having been severely abused. Where my dog will retreat in fear, Ida will leap forward, barking and nipping preemptively. Jeff can relate to her feelings, if not her behavior. She is helping him to work through some of the residual anger and grief caused by a troubled relationship with his abusive father.
CAUGHT OFF GUARD.
We were recently attacked by a little mop of a thing—Fairness and I. It was off-leash and came barreling toward us on the promenade in Beverly Hills. I wasn’t sure what it was after until it leapt at my dog and began biting him. Fairness sat down; I suppose to try to get a bead on where the tiny thing was. He tried to talk to it, but he never growled back or attempted to fight. He and I both physically froze, afraid to hurt the rotten little creature.
“Sorry, so sorry!” his owner exclaimed as she retrieved her snarling ward.
I stared at her.
“This dog is a rescue. He doesn’t need this kind of stressor. He’s been through a lot. Your dog needs to be on a leash.”
“It was just for a minute. So sorry.”
Yeah, well, a minute is all it took. I was really upset with myself for not defending my dog. For not getting out my pepper spray and warding off the attacker. It ate at me for days. You gotta give Jeff’s Ida some credit. She would have chomped the b*****d toot-sweet and asked questions later. It is moments like those where I understand her point of view.
Still, most of the time my dog and I are reacting to normal things in an abnormal way. When I say to Fairness. “There is nothing there, it’s just a scooter, that was just a loud noise, those men are only raising their arms because they are wielding work tools. There is no need to react,” I could very well be speaking to myself. He is forcing me to confront a lot of aspects of my psyche in new ways. We can both be easily unmoored, and often there is no immediate reason for our behavior. We can and should be capable of more discernment.
We are both in training, a couple of works in progress.
No matter our age, I think we are, none of us, ever fully grown. We must keep at it. Many people believe that death itself is an invitation to a new level of understanding about what it means to be alive.
As for actual mirrors, I was looking into mine in the bathroom the other day, which, right there, is a big mistake. The answer to a recent question on “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!” the famous NPR quiz show, made it clear why this is so. I can’t remember the question or the answer exactly, but it went something like this:
“Older people are found to be much happier if they avoid doing what?”
“Looking in the mirror?”
Ding, ding, ding, ding!
Score one point for the contestant! Yes, studies have concluded that older adults are happier overall when they avoid looking in a mirror.
Well, it seems like we could be commissioning studies on topics a bit more enlightening to the human condition. I am all for folks being happy, but most of us over 55 already got the memo about the mirror. Perhaps the study of wars and how to prevent them? How about a study on why people litter and how to get them to stop? Boy, howdy, could Los Angeles benefit from that one.
There are exceptions, notably Beverly Hills, where park attendants are paid to polish the posts and dust the benches, but in the main, this city is dirty and swamped with debris. There is trash on the streets, lining the highways, and tucked under the bushes in our parks, and it frequently explodes out of overloaded city bins. There are all manner of abandoned items strewn about: here a stray sock, there a backpack with one strap. Someone has tossed chicken bones on one corner of the sidewalk, while a bag of half-eaten Doritos lays scattered under a nearby tree. It’s everywhere, and it is just plain nasty, and figuring out how to get folks to stop littering would improve the quality of life for all of us who live here. Now there is a “happiness” study that I could get behind.
At any rate, I was looking in the mirror and became aghast at the state of my arms. I mean, they are fit and all. I work out hard and walk a gazillion steps a day, but the skin has changed. It does not cling as tightly as it used to my muscles. In certain lights, my elbows have deep wrinkles like the face of a Shar Pei pooch. Cute on a pup, perhaps, but on a person.… not so much.
“Face seems 60’s, maybe early 70’s, but the arms say 80’s to me,” my friend Russel once said about a woman we had recently met. She was well-carved, shaped by sets upon sets of lifted weights and more than one round of scalpels and sutures, but she was beautiful in her way.
“The arms say 80’s!” That thought rang out in my mind as I gazed at this new development. “Oh, dang it. What if my arms say 80?”
Confessing my worry, I showed them to my friend Stephanie who is just a few years older than me.
“We all have that; don’t be ridiculous. It’s part of getting older. I could spread my wings and take flight if the wind hits the skin under my arms just right. Relax, you look fine.”
The world is a particularly stressful place right now. War continues on the march in Ukraine, and now Lebanon as well as the Palestinian territories. The upcoming election in America is making everyone nervous. My dog and I are both frequently lost in our thoughts. So absorbed by them that we run into things, furniture, tree trunks and occasionally each other. I am trying to help him live inside each day as it is. To take things as they come.
“What a beautiful street. Oh, look at those flowers!” I will say on our walks and find myself ever more alive when I do.
Holding him in my arms as we spend our final moments on the sofa before bed, I will whisper, “Everything is all right now. You are home now. The past is behind you. You are safe. I will take care of you.”
I am no longer sure which one of us I am talking to, but I repeat these affirmations daily. These are the words that we both need to hear, and I hope that someday, with help from one another, we’ll come to believe.
On we go …
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When she passed, Laura and I got out the safe, which Laura had been given the code to unlock.
“How much do you think it’s all worth?” Laura asked.
I pulled out the two rings she had designed which had repurposed her wedding diamonds, “These. Maybe 1 or 2 K. The rest not much, Sis. We could sell it to a liquidator to melt down for maybe another 1 K, but this is mostly costume stuff. None of it has any meaningful monetary value. Let’s just give it to whichever niece has a feeling for it.”
The two rings, which had actual worth, were split between Laura and me for a time, but she gave me hers, because she is over 6 feet tall and a larger human than Mom was. I am the only sibling who resembles Mom in size, though, sometimes for better and more often worse, we all share many of her characteristics. So, I kept the two rings that she loved most and I found it kind of healing to put them on and take her with me through my day. We had a rough go of it her last two years. Our relationship devolved back into my childhood patterns. Mom acting out, me trying to get her to behave, her resenting me, maybe even hating me a little for it and hitting me often. She was smart and funny and had her charms, but she was also hell on wheels.
My sister and her wife provided her residence in their guest house, and gave it their all. I had, for decades, done everything I could to make sure she had what she wanted and needed. We supported her financially and every other way, but it was never enough.
“Mom. I know you are telling everyone that I am a b***h.”
“I never said that.” She hunched over and picked at her chin, a lifelong habit.
“You say it all of the time. I am not a b***h, but when my sister calls me crying because you have pushed her to the brink, it’s my job to push back.”
“Well, you are a b***h, but I never said that.”
“Okay, then. Love you too, Mom.”
After her death and the initial grief period that followed, I was startled to discover how much rage I felt. I was consumed by it. My body felt rigid, my nerves metallic. My mind whirred with something that felt like hate. It was as if after all of those years of abuse I no longer had to love her. She was gone and I could hate her guts, and I did for a minute—well, more like several months, if I am being honest. I hated her until the day that I didn’t. When compassion got the upper hand and called for the best of me to begin again to look for the love. Wearing her rings helped me lighten up.
“We are going to Canada this time,” I would whisper to the largish hunks of gold on my freakishly small fingers. “Victoria. It is postcard pretty, my favorite place to shoot. Sorry, I never got to take you there; you would have loved it, Mom.”
Those conversations in my head were a comfort.
I was headed out of the country and decided it was safer to leave them here. I had been charged with their safekeeping and I felt an obligation to protect her things. So, I decided to hide them in my apartment in case of … well … who knows?
It was maybe two months after I returned from Mexico when I realized the I had no recollection of where I had put Mom’s rings. NO idea. I searched and searched, but no go. I had to confess to Laura that I lost them, and I felt wracked with guilt, was sure that my failure to keep her things safe was a betrayal. What if I had put them in one of the worn pieces of luggage that I donated? What if they were accidentally tossed into a trash can or laundry hamper. What if???
More months went by. The searches got less frantic and frequent. I had given up on finding them through deliberate means and became resigned that I would just have to wait for them to turn up. I am not sure if I blocked it out or just plain forgot, but they took a backseat to other more pressing and equally useless worries.
The thankfully short heat wave that recently hit Los Angeles was a doozy. I had forgotten about the “Indian Summer” that usually hits this region in September. It was hot, hot, hot. I was heading out and decided to put on a weird Hawaiian shift dress that I had picked up in a consignment store a while back. It was on the list of things that, if not worn this season, was on the chopping block, headed home with the housekeeper or off to Goodwill. I decided to pair it with my red Converse Chucks, because I wanted to be comfortable and that sounded like a cute older-gal combo.
When I went to put on the left sneaker there was an object lodged in the toe. Upon investigation, it turned out to be both of Mom’s rings, carefully swathed in fabric and then wrapped in plastic film.
Eureka!
A huge relief, but also a source of joy. Something I could celebrate with Mom. I looked to the heavens:
“Mom. I’ve got them! Safe and sound. Yay! Woohoo!!! I don’t like champagne, but I will take a sip of it in your honor! “
I put them on and admired them as I looked at my hands. They are pretty pieces … a testament to her taste.
“I do love you, Mama. I do love you.”
The red Hawaiian dress has been relegated to the donation pile, which Maria Elena will inspect in the morning. In the end it’s just too weird, a half-mumu kind of a thing. I’m not there yet but when I’m ready to conceal from head to toe I am fixing’ to go full mumu.
On we go …
P.S.
I spent four hours today in a tattoo parlor on a very iffy stretch of Glendale Boulevard. I wasn’t sure my car would be there when I came out. The place had been highly recommended, so I took a breath and rang the bell. Inside, it is really quite lovely, but I admit to wondering once or twice after my vehicle. After three hours of a treatment that felt like tiny army men were stabbing my brow bone with their bayonets, I have emerged with what promises to be some rather fetching eye fringe.
I am told that they can change colors overnight, so I may awaken to find myself having gone full clown. But for now, another thing once lost had been found. Eyebrows. How about that?
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I was resolved to get to work, but the swim had done the trick and I was drowsy as all get-out, so I decided to indulge in a wee nap. I emerged from a coma-like state three hours later, having forgotten to set an alarm. By then, there was a host of other things that needed doing. A grocery run, because I was desperate to eat my own food again. My pal Caroline, who was with me on this last project, got a kick out of my attempts to fashion meals on a hot-plate-ish thingy with a teeny fridge and a microwave—the only cooking equipment available. I managed to make veggies and GF pasta with burst tomatoes and a few other things, but mostly I had lived on cheese and grapes.
The first thing I made when I got back was scallops with caramelized lemon sauce, mashed potatoes, and green beans sautéed crisp. Heaven. Home.
Then it was time for a good long walk with my sweet pup. Fairness, my new rescue dog, has come to understand the word “work.” I had taken him on two days before I started a movie in May. I have been blessed to be absent due to work quite frequently since we became a team. When I left for Canada, I explained over and over again:
“I have to go to work, but I will be back. You are my dog, and you will always be safe. I will be back. I promise.”
He understands. Work is not exactly his favorite word, but he knows what it means and seems to accept that it’s got to be done.
He loves his pet sitter but is not confused about who he belongs to. The first night of my return, he snuggled up close and lay his head on my shoulder. He has been through a lot and knows how to adapt.
I had one more plan, and that was to get up at 6:30 AM on Tuesday and start to hammer out a draft. I woke up at 8:45 with the puppy asleep in my lap. I had set the alarm for 6:30 PM Clearly, I needed a bit more recovery time.
Funny how different it is that at my age I still find myself with plenty of energy going in to every day , but I tire more easily by the end of one and feel it more deeply. At 65, I think I finally know what the term “bone tired” means, or at least how it feels.
Today is Wednesday. I am not in fine fettle yet, but I have mostly returned to form.
Working in Montreal was eye-opening for me in more ways than one. Firstly, it is a lovely city made up of a preponderance of beautiful old buildings and homes, many draped in lush greenery, so there is a lot to see. There are several sprawling outdoor markets with picture-perfect produce, and a host of good restaurants which we regrettably did not have time to try. I did find a gluten-free bakery and indulged in the best croissant I’ve ever had, wheat or no.
It was the first time that I had been on a set where the entire team, excepting the American producer (who was a gem), spoke French. Most could communicate in English when needed, but they all defaulted to their native tongue on the job. It was more than a little disorienting. I am accustomed to knowing exactly what is happening next. Did we get that shot? What is the next setup? Is there something I can do to make it easier to capture? I am normally very technical about the job until the moment we roll cameras and then I just let it all go.
The script supervisor was especially frustrating for me. She spoke very softly and wore a mask most of the time. She preferred to remain a good distance away to keep safe, I presume, so she would stand there a good 75 feet away mumbling inaudibly behind her mask and roll her eyes when I could not understand her.
“Ma’am I am sorry, but I have NO idea what you are saying. I cannot hear you. I don’t know what you want.”
She would throw up her hands and reluctantly approach, still mumbling, still masked. I would usually grasp the message after about the third or fourth try, which left both of us exasperated. I once tried to apologize to her at the end of the day.
“I am so sorry. I really have a hard time understanding you. I think maybe your accent is so strong.”
“It’s not my accent. You just do not want to understand,” she replied.
Huh. So, she decided that I just did not want to know what I needed to know about continuity because I am a know-nothing kind of gal? I tried not to let that hurt my feelings because, really, it’s ridiculous, but still … not very nice.
A month of working while words flew by in a language that I have no feel for. At times it felt harsh; the words falling so fast and furiously around me that my mind wanted to shut down, to just be somewhere else. Somewhere quiet and familiar.
They were a great group of people, and I loved working with them with that one notable exception, but it really gave me pause.
It made me stop and think about the immigrant experience, something I have never known. How it must feel to risk everything to get to a new country. To find yourself in a place where you hope your family will be safe, your children given a leg up in the world, and not understand a word. To finally get to a new home and find yourself isolated by your inability to communicate. Some folks will try to help you while others will blame you for not understanding. Will resent the intrusion of your differentness.
I was a leading actor in a movie. There were lots of people smoothing the way for me, caring about my well-being, making sure I was fed, housed, and transported. All of that, and still my nervous system felt frayed at times. Can you imagine what it must be like to not be able to count on any of those needs being met? To have to fight your way through unfamiliar systems and, by hell or high-water, find a way to put a roof over your head and feed your kids?
Respect.
BLOWN AWAY.
I have put off calling Spectrum for two days, because the thought of it makes me want to bang my head on the wall. What if I had to do that in French? Somehow explain that the billing is wrong, or the cable is out? The thought of it makes me want to lie down on the floor.
Montreal has many of the problems that our American cities share. Traffic can be hell and parking inside city limits is difficult, the signage so confusing that even native speakers cannot figure out the rules. There are homeless folks, too, and the occasional tent “city” pops up looking wildly out of place amongst the old brick duplex homes. Prices for some goods can be quite high, but they do not rival ours. Gasoline is 1.26 per gallon. That’s a little under a dollar U.S., so they’ve got us over an oil barrel there. (Canada is also a serious contributor to greenhouse gasses through their oil-shale extraction methods) So there is in fact a price to pay. Isn’t there always?
The taxes are crazy high, but the benefits are real and many. Rent control is strictly enforced. Medical insurance is guaranteed to all. The public transit is good, the public schools are great, and college is practically free when compared to American rates. There is a palpable sense of civic duty. Trash, recycling and compost rules are enforced with fines, and I saw a lot of folks get pulled over in their vehicles for what in L.A would be considered a minor infraction. The place is not as strict as, say, Switzerland, where you can be fined for running the vacuum on a Sunday. (Yes, that is a thing). But they have rules, and they expect you to follow them.
There is a spirit of collectivism that is considered suspect by some here at home. It goes against the grain of the great rugged individualism that we have been taught to believe is a winning way to live in the world. But, like it or not, we need each other. We can take many lessons from the folks across the border in both directions. I have made a pledge to really hunker down and become an advanced Spanish speaker, and after last month, what the hell… why not begin French? Life is long, if we are lucky and there is so much to learn.
On we go …
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We had some wine and talked. He told me stories that made me laugh, and I felt my shoulders start to go down. On the way home, we were approached by several children who made desperate pleas for money. I demonstrated my dollar-stashing techniques for Michael as I handed them out to each one. At the hotel, the puppy was waiting as usual. Michael and I sat down with him and rummaged in my purse for the dinner I had saved. He nuzzled into both of our arms, seeming to need affection even more than sustenance.
“Isn’t he lovely? I asked. “It will kill me to leave him here.”
“Honey, this guy is a survivor. He has you wrapped around his paw. He will find someone else.”
“Yes,” I sighed. I guess you are right. He’s just such a love.”
He took the food I had for him, and we sat with him a while longer as he pressed himself into first one of us and then the other, but soon it was time to get Mike some much needed rest.
The next day, Michael made some phone calls. He had recently filmed a movie in Budapest and knew a lot of crew people on the ground there. He was looking for connections.
“Okay. I have hired a car,” he told me when I came out of the bedroom. “He is going to drive us to a big store where they have everything, or at least the Romanian version of that. We are going to buy food for the animals and treats for the children, and then you are going to eat the food we get for you. You need to eat, honey. You look like a rail.”
We bought a ton of supplies: cases of single servings of dog food that came wrapped in little gold pouches, as well as chow for the puppy and lots of individually wrapped foods that could be distributed to kids. After we loaded it all into the hotel room, we grabbed a few items to take with us and set off to find a restaurant that our driver friend had highly recommended.
The place was located in a nice part of town where a lot of the original architecture was intact, some of it quite beautiful. Outside the restaurant at least a half dozen men wearing suits paced up and down. They all carried side-arms and eyed each other warily. These fellows are called “Mug-faces”; they are there to guard the bosses as they dine inside. The “bosses” (mostly members of the Oligarchy that had survived Ceausescu) were seated all around the dining room dressed in leisure wear. Most of them were wildly overweight, their girth threatened to burst out of their track suits. All of them sported heavy gold jewelry around their necks and big rings on their fingers.
We observed them carefully, not wanting to stare as we sat down to order lunch. We shared appetizers, and I had the chicken, which was delicious. I tried to portion most of it off to save for the streets, but Michael intervened, and I actually ate my lunch. Things were beginning to brighten.
The next day we were picked up late morning to go to set. I found the puppy before we got in the car and fed him a handful of chow. I was in every scene that was scheduled, and it promised to be a long day. There is nothing more boring than being on a movie set if you are not a part of the movie, but Michael never complained as the day wore into what promised to be a long night. In America, when a shoot goes into overtime the production is required to supply a second meal, which is often take-out food of some kind. People work hard on movie sets and need to refuel after six or seven hours. In Romania, they set out some bologna and day old bread and called it a meal. I hatched a plan.
I talked to the other three leads and got them to agree to pitch in if I could find a way to have pizza delivered to the set, which was a good forty five minute drive from the city. I did not need their financial assistance, but I thought it was important for the four of us to present a united front. This would not be easy. There was no Domino’s or any such place that delivered pizza anywhere to anyone, much less to over 50 people at a remote locale. Michael, ever the producer, started working to find a way. With a lot of help from the production office, he found a pizza place that was eager to try but needed two days to assemble an order that large. It would be delivered cold, but we figured out that there was a cafeteria type building on the studio grounds which had an industrial sized oven we could use to reheat it once it arrived.
It was Michael’s last night in the country when we astonished the cast and crew of the movie by providing a second meal of hot and pretty darned delicious pizza. Such a thing was unheard of then, and we would not have pulled it off without a lot of helping hands from production and the A.D. team. I announced that this was a gift from the actors and from all of us as a thank you for everyone’s hard work. We had all been slogging away, trying to get to the film’s finish line and this was a much needed break from the grind. It was a mitzvah, a joyous moment. Michael had in so many ways, truly saved the day.
The next night, after a fairly early wrap, a few of us decided to go out for dinner. One of our cast members was a woman named Suzy. She was a beauty who originally hailed from Hungary but had become a successful model/actress in America. When everyone met outside of the hotel, I was already down there communing with the puppy. Before he left, Michael had warned me off of trying to rescue him, and I had reluctantly agreed that it couldn’t be done. The pup was about four months and growing bigger every day. I was worried that the authorities would be called, and he would end up being removed from the area and put to death. Suzy met him for the first time that night.
“Oh my. What a sweetie! He is your dog, Beth. He is your dog,” She said after observing us together.
“I know. I am so worried about him. This place is so dangerous for them,” I said, with tears in my eyes.
The puppy tried to follow us as we loaded into a cab. He was running full speed after us as we pulled away. I had to make the driver stop so I could get out and send him back to the construction site that was his home. His eyes shone with longing, but he obeyed me and turned toward the hotel.
I got back in the car and wiped away the tears that had now fallen down my face.
“He is your dog,” Suzy said again.
“I can’t leave him here. I just can’t, but there is no way to get him out of here.”
“I will help you. I can help you. We are going to do it.”
A TICKET TO A NEW LIFE.
I had two more days in the country, but Suzy was staying on for a few more. I wrote her a check for two thousand dollars and told her I would happily spend whatever we needed to pull it off. I then scrambled to figure out how to keep him protected and alive long enough for Suzy to get him on a plane. I approached several of the “CIA” guards with the little gold packets of dog food. They all knew the puppy. I had seen one or two of them playing with him, even throwing his old boot/toy for him to fetch. I explained that I would be taking him home to the United States and asked them to feed him for me until we could arrange his transport. They were taken aback by the very notion, and all of them replied with some version of the following:
“Never take dog to America!! This never happen. Crazy lady! No. This not happen!”
Still, most of them took the food. I was relieved—I needed them to buy into the scheme. I hugged the puppy tight the morning that I left.
“You are coming with me. I promise. You are my dog, and you are coming with me. You are coming to be with me,” I told him through yet more tears.
When I traveled back with the young lead actor, we decided to grab a bite between flights. He stopped me as I tried to wrap up my food in a paper napkin—I had not shaken the habit.
“We are in Germany Beth. We are at the airport. There is no one here to give that to.”
Suzy got the puppy vaccinated and got sworn affidavits from the vet that he was a domesticated pet. She bribed a bevy of officials and somehow arranged for him to get a passport. When she went to crate him up for the long trip home, one of the CIA guards shouted out:
“Take me to America!!! Put me in box!!!”
It was a terrible flight for the poor puppy. He had never been indoors, much less in a crate in the belly of an airplane. Suzy said his howls could be heard by everyone on the flight. She somehow got to him at the baggage claim in Germany and gave him a sedative. That woman is amazing—I have no idea how she managed it, but when they arrived, she waltzed through American customs with a dog from Romania. I was able to pick him up the next day. Suzy had bathed him, and with the dirt and the green paint gone, his coat was actually a gleaming white. The minute he saw me, there was a look of understanding in his eyes. He knew for certain in that moment that he was my dog. He was too big, and it was not safe, but I let him sit in my lap all the way as we drove home.
When I took him to the vet, there was a surprise in store.
“Beth, I don’t think he is entirely a dog. I mean there is some dog, but I think he is also European white wolf.”
“He’s a wolf?” I asked, astonished
“A mix for sure, but yes, I think there is some wolf here.”
“Oh boy!” I exclaimed. “What now?”
“We need to neuter him as soon as possible to contain his growth.”
We did so at the first opportunity, and I guess it was a good thing because even “contained,” he grew to be over 100 pounds. He did not cotton to everyone; well, to most people, to be honest. He had a small pack of folks that he trusted and no use for any others. But, my oh my, did he love me. When my marriage broke into pieces and my heart with it, he came to my rescue, doing everything he could to bring me comfort. He scared the wee-billy Jaysus out of almost everyone he met, but he had a huge heart and was ever gentle with me. He was a truly magnificent creature, and he had my back every day of his long happy American life.
On we go …
P.S. Not long ago, I ran into one of the producers from that film. She told me that folks still talk about the “crazy Americans” who saved a dog. The stuff of legend.
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This event was broadcast repeatedly in the wee hours of the night. At first, I found that appalling—the re-killing of the two of them. Two weeks in, after learning how horrific the tenure of the Ceaușescuses was, how much suffering they caused, and seeing the long, treacherous road the country was on to recovery, I sought it out. Like the people that lived there, I needed to reassure myself that those monsters were indeed dead.
BAD ACTORS. really bad.
The country welcomed us with wary arms. They needed money. They needed jobs. They did not particularly cotton to Americans but were in no position to argue with our presence. Originally a monarchy, Romania has historically had a rough go of things pretty much from its inception. Much like parts of Africa, which were pillaged by the Romans and Greeks as early as 200 B.C., its agricultural wealth has made it a target of invasion time and time again. When the last of the kingdom fell to Russian overlords, it became, for a time, a territory: The People’s Republic of Romania. This is where Nicolae and Elena came into the picture.
The newly Communist authorities tore down many of the individual homes and beautiful buildings that had once given Bucharest the moniker of “The Paris of the East” The place was subsequently gray and studded with worn and charmless cinderblock housing, which is where folks had been directed to live. This meant that many had to leave their pets outside as they were no longer allowed to have animals in their homes.
Strays were everywhere. Cats, dogs, many of which were clearly descendants of purebred house pets at one time, now roamed the streets desperate to survive.
We were housed in a hotel that was surrounded by construction on three sides. The work went on day and night. No rules about that either, I guess. The remaining view faced the headquarters of the Romanian version of the CIA, the grounds of which were guarded by heavily armed men in uniforms. It was a grim locale. The hotel was decent, but the noise from the builders was off the charts and seemed never to cease.
The first night that the actors were all assembled in the city, the producers invited us out to dinner. The restaurant was dimly lit and the menu limited, but the wine and cocktails flowed, as did the animated conversation. The two lead actors were very excited to be, well, the lead actors, and the rest of us were curious about what the experience would be like. When the producers left that night without paying the bill, we got a pretty good inkling of how things were going to go. The four top-of-the-call-sheet actors, which included me, picked up the tab and exchanged concerned glances.
The day that the special effects team arrived and loaded the tools of their trade into the hotel room, one of them fielded a call from his girlfriend.
“Go outside and take some pictures.” she instructed him. “I want to see where you are.”
Their room was facing the “CIA” headquarters, and he dutifully stepped out onto the balcony and snapped away. In mere moments, there was a pounding on their door. He opened it to find men carrying automatic rifles. The armed men burst into his room, which, of course, sported an array of severed limbs, bloodied fake heads, and such. The team was whisked away to headquarters for questioning. The production company had to go and explain what we were doing and why they possessed all of these gruesome artifacts.
It was a rough go. I lost a significant amount of weight because, firstly, the food was not very good, and secondly, there were so many starving creatures on the streets that I wrapped up anything they gave me to take to the poor animals. The restaurant at the hotel had a decent breakfast buffet, but the waiters refused to serve me as I was a female peer and not worthy of such deference. I got my own coffee every day and ate a few bites while surreptitiously stowing away a few sausages for the critters.
There were lots of children around, not just the clever Roma kids who were expert beggars and of whom one had to be wary. There were others. I kept single dollar bills on my person so that I could give them out to the kids. I stowed them in pockets and both sides of my bra. If a woman opened her purse, she ran the risk of being jumped by a dozen nine-year-olds who wanted her cash. The Roma kids were tough and treacherous, but they had family. There were other children with none. They were living on their own in gangs, some of them as young as four or five. They huddled under stairwells and cadged whatever sustenance they could find. I gave as much as I could … to as many as I could.
My heart broke every day in that place. None of this was helped by the fact that it was beginning to be clear that something was deeply wrong in my marriage. I was supporting us while he pursued a law degree. I thought we were working toward the future as a team, but it did not bring us closer together. When he started school, our very long relationship began to unravel.
“I hate your husband,” The fellow playing my movie husband declared one day after overhearing one of our conversations.
“He did not ask about you once. You are having a helluva hard time over here, and all he did was complain. I hate that guy.”
I, of course, didn’t hate him, but I knew something was wrong and that he was keeping secrets. The marriage-killing kind.
The movie wore on. A trip to Transylvania to shoot the mountain sequences was poorly planned and arduous. The young man assigned to drive us was exhausted, having put in 16 hours the day before and slept only three. His driving was so erratic that the lead actor finally insisted he pull over, and we put the kid in the back seat while he took the wheel. After the first day of shooting for about 14 hours, we returned to the hotel to find that they did not serve food past 8 PM. We were in the middle of nowhere, and no one in production had thought it through, so everyone went to bed hungry that night. The place was beautiful, but the circumstances were not.
Back in Bucharest, I met a young puppy who lived in the construction site next door. I saw him on the street one day playing with an old boot one of the workers had given him as a toy. He tossed it in the air and ran after it with joy. His buoyant spirit lifted my sagging one. He was about four months old, filthy, and one side of his coat was mottled with green paint. He had clearly lain on the side of a freshly coated fence. He waited for me to come down in the morning and was outside the hotel when I arrived each night back from set. He was a sweetheart, would bury himself in my chest, and look lovingly into my eyes. I fell head over heels for him.
The pup was a source of joy and also deep anxiety, as hotel rules forced me to leave him on the streets each night. This led to endless worrying on my part and the imagining of all sorts of terrible things befalling him. My PTSD was in full swing. I was getting through filming in spite of it, but the hyper-sensitivity and negative ideation was wearing me down. I did not sleep well and was so sad that when I had a day off, I spent the bulk of it sobbing on the hotel sofa surrounded by the cacophony of the endless ongoing construction.
“Where are you? Are you outside?” Michael asked when he called to check on me. I have known him since I was eighteen, which was an eternity ago. He joined our core group from high school not long after we graduated and became a part of that tight-knit family of friends.
“I‘m inside my hotel room. It’s this loud all the time.” I replied, barely audible.
“Honey, you don’t sound good. Are you okay?”
“No,” I said, then burst into tears. “I don’t think I am okay anymore.”
“What’s going on?”
I told him about the kids and the animals and the CIA and the endless construction and the puppy, how hard it was for me to cope. My mind whirred with brutal memories and terrible predictions. He listened patiently and said everything he could think of to soothe me, made a gazillion suggestions of how I could cheer myself. It helped, but after we hung up, I grew despondent again.
The next day, Michael called back.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“I am on set.”
“Yes, I figured that. Where is the set? What is it called?
I told him where we were and asked why he wanted to know.
“Because I am here, honey. I just landed and I am on the way.”
To be continued …
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Then there is the matter of the feeding of the fellow. He eats a LOT. A growing boy, after all, and we had some serious nutritional deficits to overcome. A small, easily portable bag of chow is about four days’ worth for this guy. We need the fifty pounder. Then there is the fresh turkey and sweet potatoes that need to be cooked (and of course topped with scrambled eggs at breakfast time). All of this has to be purchased and hauled home, and well, that is sure a whole lot easier if a person can drive up to the store where such items are sold.
All of this was weighing on me and pushing me toward the decision to resuscitate my dormant and questionable driving career. I readily admit that I'm not that great at it. I am a bit goosey about the whole business. I once drove with my pal Dennis from Los Angeles to Austin, Texas, which is a considerable distance through some very forgettable terrain. I mean to say that there are parts of Arizona down there that make you shout out loud:
‘Seriously? We went and killed people for this bleak, barren, uninhabitable parcel of land?’
Our ancestors pointed guns at folks down south and said:
‘Back off, Mexico. We are taking this ugly, useless piece of land for our own, and that’s just that. This here is our flag. So, there.’
Wars were fought for this joint. It boggles the mind.
Anyway, the point is Dennis drove the whole way. I offered several times to relieve him of this duty, and he was not having it:
“No, honey. Let’s not put you behind the wheel on this one.”
So even in the middle of nowhere, with very little in the way of life that could come to harm from me being in the driver’s seat, even then he thought better of it.
BUCKLE UP.
Buckle up, L.A. I am back behind the wheel.
I have not missed it–the actual driving part of driving–and I really do enjoy using transit, and it really is good and getting better in L.A, so I was on the fence. I spoke to my sister about it and she began doing research, trying to find the car that she knew would make me do the deed. This would mean locating a certain make of car that was built before 2010 and, extra important to me (though I cannot explain why), it must have been built in Japan. For safety reasons, Laura wanted something for me that was made with a heavy metal frame. She started looking, hoping to find the magic vehicle that would lure me into taking the leap. She has never cottoned to the idea of me riding the bus.
I kept debating about it, going over and over the pros and cons.
Then came the ongoing mystery of what I am referring to as “boo-boo foot,” which was and is giving me fits. I woke up last Thursday, and my right foot was throbbing and painful to the touch. I have psoriatic arthritis, which can be nasty, so this was not entirely out of the ordinary. I wrapped some ice around it while I drank my tea, and then gave it a wee massage and shoved it into my so-ugly-they’re-almost-cute “HOKA” shoes. The dog has to be walked, so, as usual, I just got on with it.
I woke up Friday, and “boo-boo foot” was on fire, the whole thing red and swollen, the big toe huge with inflammation. I limped down the street with the dog and called my doctor exactly at 9 a.m. to beg for an emergency appointment. I went in at three in the afternoon. He looked at it and promptly sent me to Urgent Care. After a good long wait the doctor there came in, looked at it, and sent me to the emergency room. ‘Oh, for God’s Sake,’ I thought, but I dutifully reported to the waiting room at Cedars-Sinai.
Things drug on for hours as boo-boo foot took a back seat to all manner of emergencies.
There were folks there having what they call a “code gray,” which is a stroke and such, and they rightly trumped my sorry state. When they finally took me back to the emergency room, I was shocked by the state of things. There must have been thirty hospital beds lining the hallways outside where the actual rooms exist. Folks were hooked up to IV’s and covered with blankets, waiting for some kind of meaningful intervention. I joined them on a bed of my own in the hallway.
GET IN GEAR.
After two freestyle attempts with a needle, which got us nowhere except bruised, the nurse finally wheeled up a vein finding contraption–a device that locates good veins with sonar or some such. Success. Wonderful machine! I am going to beg my docs to get one. The vein search is never easy and almost always downright unpleasant. As instructed, she took a ridiculous amount of blood then set up the port for the long-awaited IV antibiotic that was supposed to fix me up. Another fellow stopped by and drew a line on my foot with a blue marker just below my ankle. He told me that if the swelling went past the blue line, that would not be good news. Hours went by.
‘Alrighty then,’ I thought, wishing I had cadged another treat out of the vending machines in the lobby while I had the chance. I had water, thank goodness, but my phone was running low, and I did not have my charger. I was trying to wait it out, wondering how long it would all take and if I should call Rob, who was watching the dog, to come and bring me one when finally, the attending physician arrived. He was tall and handsome, Hollywood casting. for an E. R. doc. He out-Clooney’d Clooney. That fellow is in the right job in the right town. He said he would have to admit me and keep me overnight if we did the IV protocol. He asked if I would like to take a big dose of antibiotic and go home on the proviso that if the swelling went over the line, I would promise to come back immediately.
“Yes,” I replied emphatically. “I went to two other places trying to avoid coming here. I mean, no offense, doc; you are all lovely and competent and the atmosphere is divine. This hallway is especially fetching, but I will absolutely take my chances and skedaddle and watch the blue line.” He smiled a big, white-toothed smile and set the wheels in motion.
I was outta there in another hour or so. I didn’t want to bother anyone, so I limped home, wincing with every step and swearing up and down. The anti-auto dam was breaking. Walking everywhere is great if one can actually walk. Not so fun with “boo-boo foot.”
I tried to think it all through. I would have to get up the next morning and limp around with the dog, and then walk another twenty minutes to CVS to pick up the prescription for the rest of the week. I couldn’t take it. No one was even sure that antibiotics were the right call. Who knows what is going on in my crazy body? I am going to have to drive again, I thought. As seldom as possible and with as much focus as I can muster, but I have to do it.
“Lolo,” This is what I call Laura most days, “I need a car. I can’t cope without one anymore,” I said, utterly exhausted. I explained what had gone on in the past ten hours.
“Ugh, sorry, sis. I’ll pick you up in the morning. We will get your meds and then go get a car.”
Maybe this is a rescue story after all.
The next morning, I limped into her car, and we set off to Highland Park, where she had a bead on a 2008 Honda CR-V. I was brimming with hope. The dealership was a bit dodgy-looking, but we were greeted by a nice enough fellow. They had to jump the car and move about twelve others to even bring it out for a test drive. A bit odd that; the car, though, was a beauty. 80k miles on it and built in Japan. Laura test drove it, as I would have no idea what to look out for. She liked it but was hesitant about a few of the systems. The air conditioning was a bit wonky, and the car pulled quite a bit to the left. They wanted 12k for it. Way too much, but otherwise, it fit the bill.
“Guys, the car is overpriced, but we like it. Let’s talk,” Laura said.
There were three guys in the office, and one threw up his hands.
“How do you know it’s overpriced?” he demanded to know.
“We looked it up. We know what it’s worth.”
“Oh, they are so smart. The Blue Book! They looked it up in Blue Book!” he said sarcastically.
They all shook their heads at the stupid women they were being forced to abide.
“I will buy it right now,” I said, “nine thousand.”
They muttered, and shook their heads, and waved their arms dramatically.
“Let’s go, sis. No car today.”
We politely took our leave and headed back towards L.A. We were both starving, so we stopped to grab a bite. During the meal, Laura decided to try one more thing. She put a description of the car we had just driven into Cars.com and pressed search. Bingo. There was one in Van Nuys at an independent dealership listed for … you guessed it. Nine thousand.
Jimmy met us near his tiny office on Sepulveda Blvd. The car was in great condition and well-priced, with only 120K miles on it, and all praise, it was built in Japan. Laura loved the way it handled and the fact that it had been well kept up by a single owner until now. We returned from our test drive, parked in the lot, and looked at each other.
“We'll take it,” Laura announced as we got out.
Jimmy led us up to his tiny office, and I handed him my ID and credit card.
“You are so much like the actress Beth Broderick. SOOOO much. It’s unbelievable how much”
“Um, well, there’s a reason for that,” I said.
“It’s you!!! Oh my God. I watch you in my country. I watch you all of the time.”
Jimmy hails from Lebanon. Good to know that I’ve got game in that joint. He was truly flustered. Papers kept slipping from his hands as he fumbled his way through the process, but soon the transaction was complete. Lolo and I took Sepulveda all of the way home, me following close behind. I was not ready yet for the 405 freeway. I called Laura incessantly as we drove. We were both excited, and Laura felt rightly triumphant. She had at last gotten me into a car–the exact car that I wanted for the exact price we knew that I should pay.
I am still using transit whenever possible and most likely will not ever drive at night. I confess that I have enjoyed the freedom of simply jumping in the car and going where I want to go when I want to go there. Sunday, I went to Home Goods for the first time in almost two years and spent an hour wandering dreamily down the aisles. There are negatives, of course. My cupboards are already full to brimming, and the freezer is packed. It is easy to overbuy when you can just shove it all in the trunk.
I have made a vow to do better, to buy less, and be more careful.
Boo-boo foot is still giving me fits, but I guess that’s just part of the deal now. I have a wacky disease, and weird things are gonna happen. My evening in the emergency room was a stark reminder that many, many folks are dealing with a lot worse things. I’ve got the best problems a gal can ask for …
…and a car which is properly old and was built in Japan. Ya now, Char!
On we go …
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We also had a makeshift “free clothing store”. People with the disease could lose as many as forty pounds in just a few weeks, which left them with nothing to wear. They could sort through donated items–some new, but most gently-used–and find new options. In truth, most of the items were donated by former clients who had passed on and wanted to help out those they left behind.
We had a “free grocery store” too. We cadged canned goods and other items from a diverse group of resources. City Harvest was our most reliable. They provided the bulk of our donations, but there was also considerable support from other food banks around the city. Food scarcity was a huge problem, as folks spent down their meager SSI benefits on medications which offered a whisper of hope, but which were not yet approved by Medicare or Medicaid. Most of our clients were financially strapped and desperately needed nutrition.
Walta became notorious for ransacking the tuna fish section of the “grocery store”. We once caught her trying to walk away with dozens and dozens of cans. We later learned that Walta came from a very wealthy family and could have simply called home for cash, but she resisted that with every fiber of her being. I am sure she had her reasons.
She had devised a plan to cadge the tuna and sell the contraband to buy drugs with the money. (Peter and I were continually shocked by the number of folks we met who had made a habit of shooting substances into their veins). Walta was a charming gal; it was impossible to get mad at her. But we had to get firm. We talked her into returning the bulk of her booty and thereafter a volunteer was assigned to “shop” with her, foiling any chance of another great tinned-fish heist.
OFF-SCRIPT.
I was spending every spare moment at the church with Peter as we frantically wrote grant proposals and searched every city system for support, but I did other jobs on the side as there was rent to pay. I had no money and mostly lived off cans of soup and corned beef hash, and Jolly Green Giant veggies along with our clients and that was just fine. Peter had a partner who supported him, but neither of us had much and we did not care. We were in the fight. It was all that mattered. The number of people who needed our help was growing fast, and we were trying to keep up.
I was no longer actively pursuing an acting career, but I had a commercial agent who got me the occasional voice-over audition. At one point I got hella lucky and snagged a “Coppertone” suntan lotion ad that kept me afloat for a time.
That agent somehow got me out to read for a role in a dinner-theater drama that was planned to debut in the Village. These sorts of entertainments were very popular back then. It was a live show where we interacted with the audience and ate dinner with them, and of course someone was murdered along the way, adding to the drama of it all. The whole evening culminated with the confrontation of and confession by the killer. If I remember correctly, we actors took turns being the guilty party.
Opening night was black tie, and we were excited to have a sold out show. I was backstage in the actors’ holding/changing area, which was just one big room, the length of which was lined with old tables facing chipped mirror pieces. A few were accented with bare lightbulbs suspended by bits of string to assist with make-up application. It was “half hour,” thirty minutes until the show would begin, when the producers rushed in.
“Beth, somebody named Walta is outside greeting the guests. He is holding a picture of you and telling people that you are in the center of a shrine at home with candles and stuff. Seems nuts and he looks a mess. You have to get him out of here.”
I guess Walta was technically male though it was certainly not her chosen identity. Folks were not as careful about pronouns then. I quickly changed into street wear and ran to the front of the building where our patrons were gathering outside. Walta was there. Rail thin, wearing short shorts with sky high heels and a ratty wife-beater tank top, she was, in truth, a sight. She had not bathed in a while and her hair was a wild, tangled mess. Many gay people were afraid to go outside. The fear of AIDS and animosity toward them was daunting, but Walta did not give a tinker’s damn about such things. She threw her arms around me.
“Dahhling I am so excited for your show!! I am just telling everyone how wonderful you are!”
I thanked her for her support. She was such a dear; I did not have the heart to tell her that she was disrupting the event. I ran to a pay phone and dialed Peter at home. By some miracle he was there and picked up the receiver. There were no cell phones then, no texting or any other way of communicating. The person you wanted to reach had to be home and in the mood to be reached.
“Go back inside Motha.” He called me Mother but his heavy Long Island accent changed the “e” to an “a” and left off the “r” entirely. “I will handle Walta. Go do your show.”
I ran back to the dressing room and leapt into my glamorous gown. Needless to say, all eyes were on me as my fellow cast-mates wondered just what in the hell I was up to and what on earth was happening outside.
The producers came back five minutes later to say that Walta had left, and everything was back to normal. Peter had arrived and offered to take Walta to the supermarket, where he would buy her as much tuna as she could carry.
Walta was one of a kind. She was brash and brilliant and naughty as all get out, but she had a huge heart and always meant well. I loved her.
The show went on and was a middling success. We ran on weekends and the dinner part of it provided the most nutrition I had consumed in years, though when it ended, it would be a good while before I ate another piece of salmon. One of my fellow actors, a woman named Sharon McNight, was a big AIDS activist in her own right. She became a treasured part of our program, lending her beautiful singing voice to our dinners and patiently riding around the city with me in a borrowed van, collecting clothes and groceries.
I would briefly date the handsome man who played opposite me, but he was terrified by the fact that I worked with folks who were sick and dying. Once, after kissing me, he burst into tears and exclaimed that he was afraid I would give him the disease. I hugged him tight and told him the truth. I could not guarantee that he would not die. I did not believe–had never thought–that the virus was airborne, but no one knew for sure. I wished him well.
Walta left the planet a few short months later. Her family actually contacted us and showered us with their gratitude for the love and care we had given her. They also made a donation in her honor. We were very touched by the gesture. I believe she would have been too, though she may have preferred to be loved by them for just being herself in her lifetime.
We kept fighting, and beautiful young folks with everything to live for kept dying, but we never gave up. Things did eventually get better, and real progress has been made, but I would add, at an immeasurable human cost. We could have—should have—done better. Our leaders could have—should have—done more from the start. I know from first-hand experience how important it is to choose them wisely.
This is a challenging time for every American. Let’s keep believing in each other, keep trusting that Walta and all of the other angels are up there guiding the forces around us toward the good that resides in the hearts of most men and women. Choose love. Always.
On we go …
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“Sir. I am doing everything I can for you and your guests. If you keep shouting and pointing that finger at me, I am going to bite it the f**k off.”
This did not sit particularly well with the owner, but Bear and Harv went to bat for me, and I managed to avoid being fired for a time. They were both very aware of how young I was and how much I had to learn. They tried to teach me about the unspoken rules of New York etiquette and keep me from plunging headlong into dangerous waters with difficult people. I did not then, nor do I now, have an adequate sense of judgement about whom to trust and whom to be wary of. I was raised in a crazy-assed household and had zero experience with standard intrapersonal interactions. My behavior was not normal. How could it be? I had no idea what normal was. I am still challenged in this area.
EVERY ROSE HAS IT’S THORN.
A woman named Susie, a fixture in the district, decided to befriend me and take me under her wing, and I was more than happy to be a part of her world. She was fun and savvy and knew everyone in town. She subsisted on a modest trust fund, had never really held a job, and so had lots of time to make friends and dash around the city being the life of the party. She had made a few halfhearted attempts to get somewhere in showbiz, but she had no appetite for hard work and having a career in the arts is nothing if not a tough proposition.
(Wages are so low these days that I think you might have to have a trust fund to even entertain the idea of being in the biz of show. Somebody is making money, I can assure you, but it ain’t the artists. )
Susie loved attention and fancied herself a bit of a legend. She was tiny, hella busty and had white, blonde hair cut short. At one point in her life, she had done a lot of stunts to get press coverage. She had dressed up as a newsboy circa the 1930’s and went to fancy establishments like Elaine’s hawking the late edition of the New York Times for a then-hefty five dollars. People paid it. It was a fun gag. She got interviewed on a few local talk shows and even made a brief appearance on Johnny Carson as a sort of bon vivant New York city character.
Susie was certain that I needed to pursue something equally attention-getting in the hopes of launching my up-til-then dormant acting career. The idea came to her in a fit of inspiration. I would dress up as Eliza Doolittle from My Fair Lady and sell violets on the streets of the city, with my target audience being theatergoers. I was to go up and down the length of the crowds of folks waiting to get into a show and sell my wares. Susie thought it best that I do a pre-show round of sales and then go back when the shows ended and work the late-night crowd. She dared me to take a chance on doing something odd and unique and sure to get noticed and I I took the bait.
I found a vendor in the flower district who was willing to order violets for me. Susie made me a hat that was an homage to the Broadway Musical. I found a blouse and skirt and used Susie’s old shawl to complete the look. I also went to Lincoln Center to study the Cockney dialect. Tom Courtenay, a wonderful actor starring then in “Nicholas Nickelby,” was a J.R. customer and he was kind enough to coach me a bit. I was going to use the line from the film “Violets here. Violets for your furs!” but Tom nixed the fur part; felt it was too limiting. When I began making my rounds in earnest, I would sing out “Violets here. Get your lovely violets here!" in my best Eliza impression.
It was kind of fun at first. Susie pointed me towards Shubert Alley and then headed for the bar at Charlie’s. She had found a sweater at Goodwill with a giant C (for coach) emblazoned on it and showed it off as she savored her beer. I had long underwear on under the blouse, and that was keeping me in pretty good stead. Lots of folks smiled and thought my getup was adorable, but sales were not strong. I was entertaining folks and that felt good, but the act was not exactly a money-maker.
Susie got someone at the Daily News to come out and cover the story. I was thrilled that I was going to make the papers. I suspected it would have zero effect on people’s interest in me as an actress, but at least I was doing something creative, and folks would know about it. Bear and Harv thought it was ridiculous, of course, and were pissed at Susie for talking me into doing the stunt and then sitting cozy at the bar, while I hustled in the cold. They repeatedly suggested that it was pointless and a waste of time, but I kept at it.
This went on for a good while. The weather went from cold to bitter cold. The winds were harsh and cut right through my flimsy blouse and single layer of thermal protection. My hands were stiff and blue, but every week I dutifully went out and purchased my violets and made them into little bouquets to sell. One night outside of Dreamgirls, a couple of gay men confronted me on the sidewalk.
“What are you doing out here?” one of them said. “It’s too cold. You are not dressed.”
“I’m selling these,” I said through chattering teeth and pointing to my basket of flowers.
“We’ll take them all,” the other man chimed in.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out way too much money, and insisted I take it. Then they gathered up all of the flowers and headed off. I made a beeline for Charlie’s to tell Susie about this stroke of luck. As I entered, the warmth hit me like a blast from a fiery engine. It burned. My hands hurt more as they began to thaw. We had a few drinks and chatted with a bunch of the regular customers at the bar. I had enough on me to take a cab home, and that felt luxurious and, more important, warm.
Any normal person would have given up the ghost, but I did not know that I could say no. I did not want to fink out on my commitment to the dare, and I did not want anyone, especially Susie, to think I didn’t have the grit and guts to keep on going. So, on I went.
March blew in on the tail of a blizzard. The streets were icy with dirty half-melted snow, and folks picked their way along carefully, mindful not to fall. The Daily News article finally came out, and I was excited to see my photo in the Arts section along with a personal-interest story about my life thus far and my motivations for pulling such a stunt in the middle of a cold New York winter. I still have a copy. Reading between the lines, it is easy to surmise that I came from a troubled background and was determined to make good, though the fact that I was doing such a nutty thing would lead any sane adult to see that there was something amiss.
One night I was outside the show Sugar Babies on Shubert Alley, trying to keep myself in the violet game. I was frozen stiff and exhausted, and I knew this was stupid and had proven to indeed be pointless, but I just did not know what to do about it. At last, the chimes rang, indicating the curtain was about to rise and the final stragglers went inside to take their seats. I started the long walk back to 46th street. It was not actually long but, with me in a blouse and high-heeled boots with only a shawl and a prayer for protection in 10-degree weather, it seemed a million miles away.
I was trudging back, bent over against the wind, when I heard their voices.
“Hey," Bear called out. “Enough already!”
They approached me, and tears came to my eyes. Bear took his coat off and held it out to me.
“Give me the posies!’ Harv said and took the whole basket and marched it to a trash can and threw it in.
They wrapped me in Bear’s coat, and each held an arm as we made our way back to J. R. Once inside, Bear kissed me on the head and told me to keep the coat on for a while, then went back to the kitchen. Harv ordered me a hot toddy and sat with me.
“You are done with that now. That crazy Susie is over at Charlie’s with her stupid Coach sweater, and you are a mess. Two people came in and told us that you looked really bad, miserable. This is dangerous what you’ve been doing, and it’s done now. Tell Susie no more, or I will.”
“It’s okay. I will tell her. You are right. It was getting so hard.”
“Yeah well … you did it. It took guts, but we are done now.”
Susie and I stayed friends for what might have been a record amount of time for her. A heavy, heavy drinker and, let’s face it, a dilettante, she had a hair-trigger temper and no interest in seeing anyone else’s side of the story. She had never grown up, never had to compromise or reason with others. As she drank harder and harder, her world got smaller and smaller. She broke up a friendship with anyone who dared to disagree with her, banished them if they looked at her sideways. Our relationship ended on the same low note as all of her others. I disappointed her somehow and she wrote me a hate-filled letter so overflowing with vile sentiment that I had to go outside and throw it in a dumpster because I did not want the ugliness of it inside my apartment. I cried reading it, and cried many times after, but I was also relived. It was hard to be her pal.
I have been life-long friends with Bear and Harv. They have been staunch supporters of mine through thick and thin. I had lunch with Harv and his lovely daughter Christina recently, and we laughed about this story. She looked at both of us like we were nuts. She might be right.
I still think of Susie fondly. I have never been able to hold any kind of a grudge against anyone. She was generous in her way, and she taught me a lot, even if it was not what she meant for me to learn.
On we go …
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V was exactly such a person. She was a single mother with three kids and had been employed as a low-ranking health care professional for many years. She was coping, working hard, and raising her children as best she could when the unthinkable happened. Her oldest child was caught in the crossfire of a gang dispute and gunned down while at play in front of their apartment building. She got the call at work. She never returned to that job.
V spiraled into despair. She took to living in her car a block away from her former home. She could not face going back to the apartment or near the scene of the crime. She drank and took whatever drugs she could find. The two youngest kids were taken in by relatives as she could no longer care for them. This went on for over a year, before she found her way to the Mission and secured a residency there. She was a star. She cleaned up from the drugs and alcohol quickly and studied hard. She was with us for 8 months with one to go before “graduation” when Sara (not her real name) approached me. Sara was on the “council” with us and was very proactive and practical. She would have most likely voted with me to shorten the group’s ridiculous title, but we were both content to leave that be. There were bigger fish to fry.
“V wants to go to beauty school. I want to help her, but I cannot do it alone. Can you chip in?” Sara asked me one day.
“Yes. She is amazing and she deserves a chance. How much is it?”
Sara explained the parameters and costs, and I wrote a check for half that day. Done and done. What was the point of all of our efforts if I could not help someone achieve their dream?
This was a question I often asked aloud before writing checks in those days, much to my financial manager’s dismay. I bought cars for people and paid for all manner of things that folks needed. I long ago had a trainer who was short the 10 k required for a third round of IVF. The young woman was desperate to have a child of her own. When I gave her the money, there were of course all manner of assurances that it would be paid back. The good news is that the third time was the charm! The bad, from my accountant’s point of view, was this meant she would not be able to take care of a baby and also pay me back. I honestly never gave it another thought. She had a happy healthy child, and to me that was worth every damned penny.
I am not applying for Sainthood here. I also spent money on ridiculous things. Beach houses I never had time to go to, clothes I never wore, shoes that hurt, My parents were terrible with money and I dutifully followed their lead.
When I first met Alec Abbott, the man who would try hard to steer the ship of my savings for many years, I declared:
“I believe in the philosophy of abundance.”
Alec sat back and gazed at me; his face expressionless.
“I am a financial planner from Orange County. I do not believe in that for one second. I believe in…planning! “
Thank God for him. He applied gentle but even pressure and somehow hornswoggled me into a successful retirement. A good man.
Back at the day spa, V finally recovered long enough to step back and catch her breath.
“You believed in me. You believed in me!” she said over and over as tears kept falling.
“Well,” I said through tears of my own, “I had faith in you, and you proved me right. I am so happy to see you.”
There were more tears and hugs all around as I learned about what had transpired since we last spoke. She had her kids back, and they were thriving. She had moved out of that terrible neighborhood into a place nearer to the spa with decent schools. My faith was just one small part of her journey to recovery. It was her willingness to learn, her determination to build a life for herself and her children, that sealed the deal. In the end, V had rescued herself. Brava!
“Thank you, thank you,” she said
“You have just given me all the thanks I could ever want or need. You take care, okay?” I replied.
Then it was time for V to apply her trade and for me to submit to the beauty regimen I had come to indulge in.
A NEW MISSION.
I parted ways with the Mission when it came to my attention that they would not provide services for anyone who identified as gay or who was not or could not be a “Christian.” This meant they would offer no help for anyone who was Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist if they could not be persuaded to denounce their origins. This also meant immediate expulsion for anyone who was thought to be gay or bisexual. This infuriated me.
I saw so much of that type of bigotry during my years on the front lines of the AIDS crisis in the 80s, when I co-founded “Momentum” in New York city with a handful of other volunteers. There was fear and prejudice everywhere as alarm bells were sounded about the spreading of a new disease, originally called Gay Men’s Cancer. A lot of people behaved very badly in response, but the worst to me was just how devastating religious intolerance could be. Many families abandoned their children, left them to die alone in New York City because they were deemed by the good church to be “sinners”. It was f’ing heartbreaking to behold. A lot of these very young people died with only a volunteer to see them to the gates of heaven, which is where I absolutely believe they went. I cannot, will not, believe in a God who would deny them.
For the record, we had tremendous support from some religious orders. The Catholic Church answered our call, as did the World Lutherans, who allowed for our program to take place in the basement of St. Peter’s in NYC. Many synagogues, too, opened their doors and hearts and offered what they could.
Still, I spoke at too many funerals which were attended by not ONE family member. Terrible stuff that, for the young men (and yes, women) who died frightened and virtually alone, as well as for the families who left them to that fate. In doing so, they made a choice which must surely haunt them to this day. A tragic situation for all concerned.
So, I left the LA Mission, and have spent the past 34 years working with the Good Shepherd Home for women and children in need. It is a Catholic organization, but their doors are open to any woman or child who is without a home. They welcome all and see each of us as beloved of the lord and blessed in the eyes of God.
There is not one of us who has made it into adulthood without help. Without that teacher who saw our potential, the parent determined to provide, or the friend or counselor who held us while we cried.
I have told Fairness, my new rescue pup, this and many other stories about people and pets who found themselves in desperate need and were offered a chance at a new beginning. He had his last treatment this morning, is on the mend, and growing fast. He is brave, full of love, and is really trying hard to learn how to be a proper dog.
When I’m holding him in my arms at night, my anxious mind finally at ease, and ready to drift off into a soft sleep, I smile and wonder just whom it is that is being rescued. If you are reading this, then I will bet that you can guess.
On we go …
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