In Pieces(63)

In early 1973, a production of A Streetcar Named Desire, starring Jon Voight and Faye Dunaway, was being mounted at the Ahmanson Theatre in downtown Los Angeles and I wanted to be in it. I knew that sending them my picture was a good idea, but I still didn’t have any eight-by-ten glossies, and the only publicity photos I had were either with my hair in pigtails or a cornette on my head. Instead I mailed them a family photo showing me looking worn and motherly, talking to Peter as I discreetly breast-fed his little brother… thinking maybe it made me look older. I had worked on three scenes, knew them, owned them, and was being given the rare opportunity to audition—albeit not with Mr. Voight or Ms. Dunaway. Arriving a half hour early, I walked around the courtyard of the Ahmanson Theatre trying to calm myself, and when that didn’t work, I stretched out on a stone bench directly across from the artists’ entrance. The day was hot and the stone felt cool as I looked up at the sky, breathing in deeply and out very slowly, like I was in the first stages of labor. “You have a right to be here, you’re good at what you do, you have a right to be here,” I chanted over and over, while flapping my trembling hands in the air to release any visible tension. But I couldn’t quiet my heart, which pounded with such force that it made my thin cotton dress bounce around rhythmically.

I could say the reason I didn’t get this part was because of my size, that I’m too small, that I didn’t fit with the rest of the cast, or that though I was twenty-six years old at the time—the right age for Stella—I’ve always had a childlike, girly quality, and I didn’t know how to leave it behind. All of that is true. But the real reason I was crossed off the list was because I didn’t know how to audition. By the time I walked onto the stage, a huge magical dark theater—empty except for the producers and the director who would judge me—I was overwhelmed by it all, overwhelmed with longing, disconnected from myself and the work and from any chance of finding my version of Stanley Kowalski’s pregnant wife. I don’t remember hearing my voice reverberate through the lofty space, don’t remember playing any of the scenes I’d worked on. Maybe I never made it that far.

What I do remember is the bumper-to-bumper traffic, and the afternoon sun smacking me in the face as I drove away from downtown Los Angeles, feeling powerless to move my life or even my car forward. Finally, I walked into a house turned upside down, as usual, while Steve lounged on the deck smoking a joint, strumming his guitar, and watching the sun go down. From Peter’s room, I could hear the dreaded “walky, walky, walky,” and as I tried to sit down on the floor with them, Peter snapped, “No, Mom, no. We’re playing. Go away.” I then trudged to the kitchen, hoping to find something to scrub, which, of course, there was never a shortage of.

When I’d cleared enough space to get dinner going, Baa wandered in saying she had to go, and without turning I tossed out a quick “Great, see ya,” not wanting to meet her eyes. She watched me from the door for a moment, then moved to put her hand on my back and her glass in the sink, asking, “Are you okay?” I could feel the dance between us—the one, two, cha-cha-cha as she stood there waiting for my lead. Part of me wanted to cry, to tell her how desperately I wanted her to stay, to hear her talk to me from under the closet door. But instead, I denied her any glimpse of my longing, ignored her question, and punched at her with my irritated words. “Well, thanks. That’s one glass you brought to the sink.”

After dinner had been made and eaten, after the kids had splashed in the bath and crawled into jammies, bedtime thankfully arrived. All I wanted was to throw myself down the dark hole of sleep, to be unable to feel for a while, but ten-month-old Eli was not going to cooperate. He kept crying, screaming to be picked up, to be rescued from his crib, demanding that the day continue. And after the fifth or fiftieth trip into his room, after patting his back and tiptoeing out thinking I was free to drift away, after waiting for Steve to stop reading whatever volume of Sandburg’s Lincoln he was on, the banshee woman—who stood constantly in my shadow—marched into Eli’s room, grabbed my baby, thundered back, and threw him onto the bed next to his distracted father. It wasn’t a great distance, but it had been done recklessly, with the same fury-fueled impulse that had possessed Jocko when he flung me across the backyard into the swimming pool. And even though he was only ten months old, Eli felt as humiliated and outraged as I had when I was twelve. Steve picked up the wailing baby, carried him back to his room, shut the door, and rocked him to sleep. I sat outside on the wooden deck, watching the waves tumble to the sand, hitting myself in the face over and over. All in all, not my best day.

One night, maybe a week later, after putting Eli in his crib and patting his back until he seemed to settle, I slipped out and stood at the door listening while he started to cry, as he usually did. Knowing I’d probably have to go back in a few minutes, I was moving toward my bedroom when abruptly, the crying stopped. Could he have fallen asleep that quickly? I remember standing in the doorway thinking, Good, he’s learning. But within seconds, my instinct sent me back into the room. Eli seemed to be soundlessly locked in the midst of a deep wail, like he couldn’t catch his breath, like he couldn’t release the sob and breathe again. I immediately picked him up, hoping he would relax and exhale. But he didn’t. I screamed for Steve and started pounding on my little boy, saying, “Breathe… breathe.” His arms and legs began to vibrate while his body became rigid, then his back arched and his face turned from red to blue. And still he didn’t breathe. Slowly his body began to melt, until his head flopped onto my chest and he took a breath. Holding him tight against my heart, I sank to the floor, crying as I rocked back and forth. Minutes later, he opened his eyes with a look of vagueness, not really focusing on anything, and even without words, I could tell he was disoriented. I kept repeating to him that he was okay, that I knew what it was like when you couldn’t remember where you’d put your arms and legs, that I knew how frightening it was and that it was over.