by John Rechy
But they survive, dearheart. They survive!
2
“And now!”—Lady Star had clearly prepared for this moment—“for the first time in the history of the Dead Movie Stars, we have allowed a petitioner for . . . Verna La Maye!”
Mesmerized awe hushed the room.
The petitioner was almost translucent. She wore a pale dress of scarves embroidered with breaths of beads. She was barefoot, a delicate martyr. In a voice athrob with hope, she said only, “I want life!”
Her unanimous elevation to pretender was greeted by cheers from the assembled. “Proceed as Pretender of Verna La Maye!” Lady Star exhaled.
The Pretender of Verna La Maye spoke in cadenced sighs, now saddened, now on the brink of ecstasy, now soaring beyond it and deep into despair: “I was born into the lap of wealth. The family chauffeur kidnapped me. The truth came out: He was my father, in love with me! My mother killed herself. My grandmother banished me in revenge. With my first film, I reached dizzying heights of stardom! Then! . . . Mayhem, drugs, unspeakable orgies!” She breathed doom into the hall: “And stalking murder.”
Betty Grable defied the quickly woven trance: “Were you a lesbian?” she tested slyly.
To the hushed audience, the pretender directed the great star’s famous words: “Lesbian? What is lesbian? I adore flesh! I adore the sight of flesh, the odor of flesh, the touch of flesh! I adore bodies! I know not gender!” Her own flesh shone in silver rivulets under the drapes of her dress.
Applause led by Betty Grable, sustained by Hedy Lamarr!
“Yes!” Lady Star voted. With enthralled agreement from the entire panel, the pretender was transformed into—
“—the Contender for Verna La Maye!” Lady Star exulted. “Proceed with scenes!”
Envying, admiring sighs.
The Contender for Verna La Maye bowed her head. In the dim penumbra of light, a menacing figure stood up.
“I walked naked in the moonlight, I laughed and thrilled and lived!” The contender’s hands flew up, reaching for invisible stars, creating them with grasping fingers. “Because I knew that doom was stalking me.”
“It was your grandmother who was stalking you.” Tyrone Power displayed his own knowledge of the famous tragedy.
“She killed you; then she killed herself,” Errol Flynn reminded.
The Contender for Verna La Maye shook her head. She pointed a glittery finger at—
—the lurking figure! He stepped out of shadows—a youngman wearing an elegant dress!
“I was in my bath.” The contender approached terror. “In my foyer, three men and three women waited, with arms full of orchids, for me to choose whom I would possess—devour hungrily—for that night, in my despair to live. At the same moment, he entered . . . so silently.”
The youngman removed the dress, stood now in men’s clothes.
“He took one of my silk stockings sent daily by Prince Fernand and—” She unclasped her hand, releasing a stocking so light it surrendered only slowly to the floor.
“He wrapped it about my neck!”
The youngman tightened the stocking about the girl’s neck.
She collapsed. The youngman knelt over her. He kissed her in a long, tragic farewell. Dissolving into shadows, he left behind— . . . an aging book, a journal.
Within gasping silence, the contender rose solemnly. Her whisper echoed in the hall: “I was murdered by a man, a fan obsessed with my great beauty, longing to possess me entirely by taking my life. He killed my grandmother and made it appear like suicide; he stole her clothes and assured he would be seen as her pretending to hide.”
“Ahhh,” Lady Star sighed.
Billy Jack broke his own trance: “Verify your secret!”
The contender bent to the floor, retrieved the abandoned book. In beautiful jeweled hands, she held out to the panel the aging pages. “This is the lost diary of Helmut Franz, my killer. It was given to my mother, by her mother, who loved Franz and kept his secret until he died,” the youngwoman spoke momentarily as herself. Then as Contender for Verna La Maye, she turned to exhibit the confessional journal to the congregation. She placed it on the floor, at her bare feet. She looped jeweled, glittering fingers.
“Glamour and tragedy linked forever in one moment of warped but encompassing love, and I was dead at twenty-three.”
The Dead Movie Stars inundated her with a flood of “yeses,” joined by many in the audience.
Inhaling for all to hear, Lady Star announced to the contender, “You are now . . . a Dead Movie Star.” She waited for the enormity to be perceived within quivers of silence. “Welcome . . . Verna La Maye!”
Adulation! Resentment! Loud applause from the audience as Verna La Maye mounted the platform of power.
And so they had finally asked for evidence. But the book could have been any yellowing book, Normalyn noticed. And there was still—
“What about me!” The loud demand smashed the mood of fascination over the ascension of Verna La Maye. The words had been spoken by the youngman who had played the murderer in disguise.
“I vote no!” Verna La Maye snapped at him.
“Supporting players are not allowed consideration,” Lady Star informed the youngman. “You merely touched glamour, brought about tragedy; you should be grateful!”
“That’s right,” Verna La Maye agreed.
“Treacherous bitch!” the youngman said to the newly born Verna La Maye. “I’ll tell your mother everything!”
“Go ahead!” challenged Verna La Maye. “She won’t give a fuck. What’s more you can screw her.”
The youngman held the delicate stocking, an end in each fist. “I’ll kill you for that, cunt! I’m gonna wrap this around your skinny neck and—” He twisted the stocking into a knot before Otto dragged him, resisting and shouting, out of the hall.
The girl on the panel looked frightened.
There was silence in the basement of the church.
Normalyn felt cold in the sweaty basement.
“Petitioner for Victor Mature!” Lady Star ended the interlude with a quickly dismissed petitioner, and two others.
“And now!” she intoned. “For the first time in the great history of the Dead Movie Stars we have allowed a petitioner for—” Her look held on Normalyn.
Did she really expect her to protest— . . .? What? Normalyn felt tension without object.
“—for the star some would say was the most glamorous, the most tragic, the greatest movie star of all!” Lady Star paused . . . paused . . . paused. “Marilyn . . . Monroe.”
Even the clammy air in the enclosed hall seemed to sigh.
3
“Petitioner!” Lady Star summoned.
Before the panel, the pretty youngwoman who had sat behind Normalyn did not look like the great star; but the star’s outline was so powerful itself, so defining of the great creation, that the evoked presence quieted the gathering.
A signaling cough made Normalyn turn toward the older woman. The woman shook her head—No—at the petitioner. Then with a slightly raised hand she greeted Normalyn, and smiled.
The Petitioner for Marilyn Monroe froze in a pose before the panel.
Lady Star hurriedly announced that “because of impressive advance qualifications, darlings,” the petitioner was being allowed to become a contender.
So easily—without being tested as pretender! A current of resentment, surprise—and anticipation—zinged through the basement of the Thrice-Blessed Church.
Signaling shocking withdrawal of all preliminary support, Lady Star hissed at the blonde pretender, “What secret can you possibly tell us about the Great Monroe!”
In the breathy stammer of a hurt girl, the Contender for Marilyn Monroe said, “I h-h-had a daughter.”
Twenty-Nine
“Beware, contender!” Lady Star’s voice was ominous. “You will have to present evidence, evidence, evidence! Sources, sources, sources!” Her onslaught of warnings announced the evening’s closest s
crutiny. “And! You will have to name names!” she pummeled.
“But you t-t-told me—” the sudden contender stammered in bewilderment. Her hands trembled like dying butterflies.
“You are on your own . . . darling!” Lady Star decreed. Billy Jack and Veronica Lake nodded solemnly.
Shot down and left to flounder! Yet they had elevated her without examination, Normalyn evaluated. In days preceding auditions, they had praised the girl, perhaps provided guidance. At the same time that Normalyn felt sorry for the youngwoman abandoned in abrupt hostility, she was relieved that the contender’s startling declaration had been pushed aside. Warm blood coursed through Normalyn’s body, which had frozen when the contender declared her “secret.” Still, the mere announcement had been so bold that the words echoed in the webby shadows of the basement of the Thrice-Blessed Church of the Redeemer.
“And, contender!” Lady Star piled dour warnings: “Be aware that there just might be someone who will challenge anything you claim!”
Who did she mean? She herself, Lady Star? Others of the “knowledgeable” Dead Movie Stars? The older woman—of course. Certainly Lady Star was not counting on her, Normalyn, to be the challenger.
“Proceed!” Lady Star barked at the contender.
“I-I-I was born out of w-w-wedlock,” the contender was able, barely, to gasp.
“Now that’s what I call a secret,” Veronica Lake sneered.
“She, uh, got the, uh, s-s-stutter almost right,” James Dean contributed.
The confused congregation suspected giggles were being invited. Some rowdy “ex-punkers” tested laughter.
Normalyn deduced quickly in order to prepare her reactions: By tossing the contender into the thickest area of interrogation, the Dead Movie Stars had also placed her closest to achieving the longed-for goal of Dead Movie Star. A gamble to heighten tension—and to push any protester—her?—to act impulsively, compete for “truth,” assert herself as the real candidate!
Or as the star’s daughter!
That thought hurled itself at Normalyn. If from these auditions there should emerge the bare suggestion that she might be the great star’s daughter, that would guarantee the Dead Movie Stars serious validity as revealers of “glamorous” scandal. A startling revelation would bring them what they yearned for most—“stardom!” And it would end her hope to live her own life. Normalyn searched the basement for any “outside” presence, summoned secretly. No, the Dead Movie Stars could not risk such scrutiny at this point. Too much could go wrong within the loose rules of “auditions.”
The contender went on in her frightened voice: “I was in and out of h-h-homes, never adopted.”
The “guest,” the older woman, moved her folding chair a row ahead.
“Who doesn’t know that?” Billy Jack taunted.
Lady Star pretended to conceal an endless yawn. Her foot tapped an unnerving message of gathering impatience.
Now the blonde contender looked only like a schoolgirl with bleached hair, tacky heavy makeup, and an exaggerated beauty spot. Fresh, she had appeared good in the glow of the borrowed outline. “I worked in an airplane factory,” she offered.
“Oh, no!” Betty Grable reacted in mock surprise. “Really?”
But what would have roused their suspicions that an association existed between herself and the movie star? Normalyn continued her hurried inner evaluation. She had conveyed only a vapory knowledge of some relationship between Enid and the star. Still, she was at the center of interest for at least some of the panel. Just watch how Lady Star—and Billy Jack and Veronica Lake—kept forcing her to acknowledge their stares. No. All they wanted was a reasonable contender for Marilyn Monroe, and she, Normalyn, had come to them bearing the sharp imprints of the star, she dismissed it all.
“I was raped when I w-w-was eight!” the contender was desperately grasping for shock.
“You’re the only one who’s just discovering that!” Errol Flynn sneered.
Normalyn tried to erase Ted from her mind now.
“I always wanted ch-ch-children,” said the contender and followed her words with a yearning sigh.
“But!” Lady Star’s accusing finger shot out at her. “You couldn’t have any, could you? Because you had an operation, didn’t you? And having children was impossible, wasn’t it?”
“But I had another operation that made it possible again. Really.” The contender’s voice edged toward pleading.
The older woman in the dark dress cleared her throat for attention. “That’s true.”
This time Normalyn did not want to invite further contact between herself and the woman.
Lady Star allowed the moment its full impact. “So!” she said to the contender. “You did know that. Well, so did we, and so did our wonderful, wonderful guest. We were testing you!” she told the contender. Holding her orchid in place, she led a glissade of laughter. “As contender for the immortal Monroe, you must anticipate closest scrutiny.”
Which had not been given to Verna La Maye, nor to John Derek when he had been briefly elevated to contender. Normalyn recognized more evidence of specialized manipulation of this contender.
“Everyone knows about the two operations,” Rita Hayworth underscored.
“My grandmother tried to s-s-smother me when I was three,” the contender tried valiantly.
Oh, who had borrowed that from whose life? Enid? The movie star? Normalyn’s mind drifted to her own questions because her expectations of learning anything from the contender were fading.
The contender no longer attempted to pose in curves as she recited like a miserable student before a teacher determined to reprove: “I married a guy who went in the n-n-navy—”
Errol Flynn asked the contender, “Where the hell’dya get your scoops—the public library?”
The congregation, unleashed to heckle, applauded Errol Flynn’s wit.
“We! Know! All! That!” Tyrone Power sneered at the contender.
Now James Dean slumped, Betty Grable coiled the same curl of hair over and over, Tyrone Power moistened his lashes with saliva, Verna La Maye explored her frail hands, Hedy Lamarr soothed one wayward hair, Rita Hayworth freshened her lips. Veronica Lake became utterly fascinated with the ceiling. Billy Jack added blood to the tombstone on his chest, with Rita Hayworth’s lipstick. Lady Star propped her wearied head on her palms.
But they were not moving to banish the contender with a call for votes, the way they had with others all night. Because they had not achieved their goal with her, Normalyn deduced.
Even the sequins on her dress abdicated their glitter to beads of sweat on the contender’s face as she withered, withered, proceeding doggedly: “Once, I tried to locate the man my m-m-mother said was my f-f-father. I telephoned him, and he denied it. He told me never to call him again.”
A hot coldness enclosed Normalyn’s body. She had called Stan Smith, whom she had suspected might be her father, and he had denied it, demanded she leave him alone. She had relived that!—coaxed by—
David Lange.
All was swept for Normalyn with deeper suspicion. Did she detect in this basement the invisible presence of David Lange?
Coincidence! she told herself forcefully. David had explained everything!
“Why are we letting her waste our time?” Hedy Lamarr demanded.
“Search me,” offered Tyrone Power.
Rita Hayworth, Errol Flynn, and Betty Grable wondered, too.
In angry answer, Lady Star leaned over the table to glower at Normalyn. Veronica Lake and Billy Jack joined the stare.
Just cross your arms over your chest, dearheart, and stare them down! . . . Normalyn did both.
The contender stood frozen before the panel.
This contender obviously knew nothing. Normalyn would stay only to discover why they needed her and to learn who the older woman was.
Unnerved by the stasis, her orchid dangling dangerously over one ear, Lady Star screamed at the contender, “Well, go on, darling!
Don’t you know anything? Nothing? Nothing at all?”
“You are so wrong, Lady Star!”
Lady Star’s orchid fainted on the table.
At the contender’s bold words, scattered gasps emerged out of currents of excitement rushing through the congregated.
Facing Lady Star and the panel, the Contender for Marilyn Monroe curved her body, slowly, part by part. She rounded her shoulders, softly. She let fall, casually, one of the straps from her dress, which, suddenly enamored, hugged her body. With quick fingers she rearranged the blonde hair into soft tilts, courting sprinkled highlights. She reddened her parted lips bold-red. Out of nowhere, she brought forth a pair of dazzling earrings, slowly putting one on her right ear—a cluster of tiny stars! She tilted her head and attached another gathered burst of stars to the left ear. She touched a moist finger to the beauty mark on her cheek. Tension dissolved, nervousness fell as, before all eyes, she reasserted the magical outline of the great star as if she had been acting before . . .
. . . or as if she was just now beginning to! Normalyn wondered which.
The puzzled look on Lady Star’s face confirmed her amazement—and found reflection in Billy Jack, Veronica Lake, the others.
Looking stern, serious, the older woman moved her seat closer to the clearing and the panel.
In a breathy voice, the Contender for Marilyn Monroe said, “What I just told you is the biography everyone knows—the evolution of an insecure girl.” She addressed the audience: “but I do know . . . secrets.”
The assemblage was in her hands.
“Do you want to know what really happened when I met the President of the United States . . . and his brother? Do you want to know about my last pregnancy? And the elaborate plan to allow me to have my child? Do you want to know what really happened in those fateful last days of my life?”
“Yes!” shouted Billy Jack—and all the Dead Movie Stars except Lady Star swayed in affirmation toward the contender.
