by John Rechy
“And you told me some,” the contender reminded Lady Star. “And I read lots of books,” she continued, to authenticate her narrative. “But I couldn’t find out everything—who can? So I made some up.”
“You what?” Those were the only two words Lady Star could utter. They were echoed variously by the stunned founders.
The contender flung herself on the mercy of the panel, the audience—and Lady Star: “But I did tell you a lot. You know I did!”
That was true, Normalyn knew, feeling sorry for the young contender who had explored so intimately the intertwined lives and been trapped by their riddles.
Lady Star stood her full length. “I move for the unanimous rejection of this . . . contender . . . pretender . . . petitioner!” she demoted. She walked up to each of the Dead Movie Stars: “Reject her!”
The panel, the audience, all were released from the deep spell; whistling, hoots rose from the congregation.
“Re-jected!” leered Billy Jack. “Re-jected!” Veronica Lake led the rest of the panel. Only Verna La Maye cast a timid affirmative vote—but was informed by Lady Star that new Dead Movie Stars would vote only at following auditions.
“The contender has been rejected unanimously!” Lady Star announced the verdict.
“B-b-but I was g-g-good,” the youngwoman pleaded with the panel and the fans. “You l-l-loved me, remember? Why did you stop loving me?” She pleaded plaintively with them: “Will you love me again when I’m g-g-gone?”
Boos of derision!
The youngwoman’s supporting players fled the basement.
“Out!” Lady Star ordered the ex-contender.
Just like that! As dramatically as she had scaled the dizzying heights of favor and stardom, the contender fell. The girl with bleached blonde hair stumbled, crying, out of the basement of the Thrice-Blessed Pentecostal Churcn of the Redeemer.
“Bye,” called a forlorn Verna La Maye.
Lady Star stood before Normalyn and, with a look, cut her in two pieces, then three, then four, five— Whirling about to create a warning Swoosh! with her slit gown, she snagged her dress on a nail protruding from one of the boards of the platform. She snapped it free. Rip!
Back in her tall chair, she was aware of a new restiveness in the basement. The evening could not end like this. It had to have a soft focus, a touch of poignancy, the hint of further revelations for a future interlude—oh, yes—and some quiet mystery.
Inspired: “May we hear from our honored guest—Sandra! Miss Sandra! Perhaps she will comment on the latter part of the evening—some events she’s familiar with? Miss Sandra, please!”
The older woman, Sandra, shook her head. “No.” Someone encouraged her graciously by touching her elbow. Lady Star goaded her with pleases. Another hand was extended to her, to encourage her to rise from her seat. Still hesitating—“No, no”—she was ushered into the aisle, then the clearing. She stood there uncomfortably. Then she looked at Normalyn. Now she spoke with gentle authority, as if only to her:
“I was their best friend, Norma Jeane’s and Enid’s, in the orphanage. They were so pretty, even then. I was always homely; that’s why I was put in the home. But that doesn’t matter now.”
Normalyn answered the kind smile.
“Norma Jeane and Enid were so close I’m not surprised that years later they acted at being each other, Marilyn in a dark wig just like Enid’s beautiful real hair, Enid in a blonde wig just like Marilyn’s own gorgeous hair—”
The memory was real! On the shoreline Enid flung a blonde wig into the black sea, and then the other woman— . . . Normalyn sensed the memory evaporating again, she tried to force it back. Yield more! But it was gone.
“And I was there when they started playing the game years ago,” Sandra had continued, with a touch of embarrassed pride. “It all began there, in the shadow of the angel’s wing,” she seemed to say only to Normalyn.
Normalyn closed her eyes and saw Enid’s chipped angel—gone now, shattered.
As if in sudden bewilderment to find herself standing among them, Sandra said to the others, “Then it all turned uglier than that girl just told you. That vile, evil Mildred Meadows!” she said angrily. She moved away from the clearing. She paused before Normalyn and touched her hand. In control again, she said quietly to Normalyn, “You’re so pretty, like your mother. When we received the jacaranda bouquet, we knew you were here. That’s why I came.” She whispered, only to Normalyn, “The Wing of the Angel.” Softly.
Before Normalyn could say anything to her, ask anything, the older woman hurried out of the church basement.
Perfect! More than she had hoped for. Lady Star announced, “Auditions! Have! Ended!”
Otto removed the boards from the windows. Night had turned purple. Timeless hours—yes, decades—had been roamed through in this basement.
The audience left quietly. The Dead Movie Stars moved out amid whispers, all subdued as if everything that had occurred must be left in the shadows of this basement. Verna La Maye waited at the exit, as if terrified to leave with her new identity. Then she moved out.
Lady Star looked about for her orchid. It had fallen on the floor, dead. She picked it up, inspected it, forced the remains into her hair.
Alone on the front row, Normalyn faced her with arms determinedly crossed, reminding that she had contributed nothing!
Lady Star stared back at her. She touched her hand to her chin and leaned forward. After long moments, she said, “Well . . . darling . . . why did Enid run in horror out of the secret hospital?”
Normalyn shook her head.
Outside, the desolate young people, rejected again—makeup smeared, odd costumes disheveled in the creeping dawn—moved silently into the twilight of Hollywood.
Thirty-Four
It was the beginning of the day, the moments before dawn. Alone, Normalyn oriented herself outside the church. Which route would she take to avoid the blemishes of Hollywood Boulevard’s battlefield of wanderers? With a silent sigh, she realized she had intended to go to Troja’s and Kirk’s. Only Troja’s now. That was not her home any more. She considered going there anyway. No, she was too tired, depressed, confused, to risk possible rejection. She walked along silent streets lined with unfazed palmtrees.
Miles away in the evaporating night, a patch of the Hollywood Hills glowed with an eruption of fire. Gliding flames, like flashing neon, were destroying—so gracefully! Normalyn heard maddened screams of sirens in this terrifying, beautiful haunted city at the edge of the ocean—a city of flowers, lost identities, mysterious revelations.
Ahead, in a murky dusk, the château where she now “lived” looked sinister, gauzy, as if draped in cobwebs. She waited, watching, before she entered its twisting corridors. She did not want to encounter the shaggy Dead Movie Stars, not now, now that this strange long night had finally ended.
It hadn’t!—she knew that when she was inside the château and incongruous beginning light was attempting to seep into the maze of hallways. Inside her room, mysteries, questions, at times only puzzling images—all she had kept in abeyance during the unfolding of the epic presented by the girl at auditions—inundated her: . . . a real abortion in a hospital isolated in the desert . . . Enid running out in horror . . . the threatened scandal that had set everything into motion—poised over it all, never erupting . . . artificial jacarandas signaling to others her presence in the city— . . .
Normalyn sat on her bed. She reined the rampage in her mind. She evaluated clearly. In her highly dramatic presentation, the girl who had crashed from contender had admitted “making up” some of her information. She had also told of being given information—obviously self-serving—by Lady Star. Much, shaded by omissions, had clearly come from Mildred Meadows, whether through direct contact with the contender or through Lady Star. That information had armed Normalyn with an arsenal of tinted knowledge. To be used how? Would Mildred attempt to extort answers from her later?
There was authenticity within the prese
ntation: Enid’s intimate presence, with her nervous silver lighter, affirmed that, as did close parallels with the chronicles of others—Mark Poe’s, Miss Bertha’s—and, yes, Enid’s gasped utterances in her final days. . . . Sandra, the orphan, had also verbally confirmed a claim made at the auditions. Her silent acquiescence in familiar matters suggested agreement. Even the ex-contender’s admission that she had “made up” certain parts might signal only the natural embellishments required in a complex narrative—the insertion of intimate points of view to clarify motivation.
Essential illumination had occurred! The shadows that populated the distant shoreline had been given sharper clarity, and she was certain the incident was real, not a dream. . . . She had relived an incident that belonged to Marilyn Monroe— the movie star had telephoned the man she thought was her father and he had rejected her, just as “Stanley Smith” had done only days ago to her. That fact restored all the suspicions David Lange had banished with easy explanations. He was the one figure who remained a constant question mark, unchanged. She would confront him again—after she located Sandra. The reference to “the wing of the angel”? . . . And she must locate Dr. and Mrs. Crouch, presences of enigmatic allegiance, whose names were entangled in coils in Enid’s clipping. They had refused to speak to the ex-contender, determining she was “not the right one.” Well, she, Normalyn would be! With Lady Star’s assistance! Yes, because on that fateful dark night of separation from Troja and Kirk—from Kirk forever!—Lady Star had used them—and “the orphan”—as enticements for her to remain. Of course Normalyn knew the stakes for information would be higher now, but Lady Star still needed her for whatever purpose. Normalyn was ready to barter! She must do so now—not let full morning, about to erupt through her windows, bring false clarity to mysteries she must investigate.
She rushed to Lady Star’s room before—she smiled at the thought—sunlight would turn the red-haired girl into dust.
The remains of the dead orchid tangled in her hair, Lady Star opened the door.
“I will audition!” Normalyn’s words echoed in the château.
“But of course you will,” Lady Star borrowed from Mildred Meadows. Her piping voice tried with unsuccessful huskiness to conquer her delight at the news: “We’ll proceed to arrange auditions very soon. We have petitioners to spare.” She waved a breezy hand out the window, where the hopeful might already have begun to gather, “and we have scoops of them left over from last night.”
Normalyn tried to make her contingency casual: “Naturally I’ll have to talk to the Crouches, and others.” Whatever she and Lady Star suspected about the other’s motives, both would proceed on the announced assumption—auditions. Normalyn prepared to barter. “If—”
But Lady Star had already said, “Done!”
Without another word, Normalyn walked away.
Daylight entered her room through tall undraped windows. She fell asleep, dreaming vividly about a house isolated in the Mexican desert, where wind blew soundlessly . . . and inside the echoless house, splotched with sunlight refracted through color-stained windows, a woman lay on a strapped bed, bleeding— . . .
Hours later—it was already dark in the room, because the sun shone on this wing of the château only early in the morning—Normalyn woke to the sound of voices in the hall. The Dead Movie Stars on their way to recruit for the new auditions? A folded white envelope was slipped under her door. She waited to retrieve it, not wanting to indicate that she was here.
She heard a voice—Billy Jack’s? Tyrone Power’s? “Have they, uh, found her?” It was James Dean’s.
“Her mom’s turned vicious. She kept yelling at us outside that she’s going to call the cops!” That was definitely Rita Hayworth.
“Call them because we’re glamorous?” sneered Betty Grable.
“Oh, let the old woman do what she wants, darlings!” Lady Star dismissed. “We don’t know where she went after auditions, either.”
“Maybe she made up with the dude who strangled her in her scene and went off with him.” That was Billy Jack.
Normalyn waited until the voices diminished. She pulled the envelope into the room. On the right-hand side of a plain white piece of paper were inked flowing initials tangling like snakes: “L.S.,” penned over and over in an effort to make the letters appear engraved.
Darling—
Dr. & Mrs. Crouch expect you very soon—today!!!—about New Auditions as agreed!!! Prepare!!!
Yours trully—
L.S.
At the bottom of the note was a telephone number.
The peeling wall by the public telephone in the corridor was so scribbled over that it seemed now to convey only one huge unintelligible message. Normalyn was about to dial the number on Lady Star’s note, then, instead, dialed Troja’s number. “Hello!” Troja answered on the first ring. Normalyn was flooded with relief, then joy. Troja’s voice demanded into the listening telephone: “Dammit, Normalyn, is that you?”
Normalyn hung up. How dare Troja assume it was her! How dare she speak to her in that tone again! Then her feelings devised another possibility: What she had thought was anger might have been eagerness for it to be her friend. For now Normalyn would leave that in promising ambiguity, especially because she felt relief that Troja’s voice had not sounded slurred. . . . Oh, and she would have to call Mayor Hughes. The last time she had called, he had asked jovially, “Well, now, honey, have you found yourself yet?” She did not want to hear that now. She would call him later to inform him of her new address. Ask him to inform Ted?
She remained by the telephone booth, wondering whether she was suddenly afraid of calling to arrange to see that doctor and his wife out of the past, witnesses to terrible events. She thought of calling Mark Poe in Palm Springs again, to ask him— To ask him— But she knew he had told her everything that afternoon. Ask about Michael Farrell? Right now, she wished she could remember the book he said he had been reading that day so she could get it at the library. But she hadn’t given him her number, so that was that.
Impulsively, she called Information. “Dambert, Lucas Dambert—in Westwood.” There was an L. E. Dambert in Brentwood, the operator informed her. She dialed, doubting that she would reach Professor Dambert. A young, polite girl answered. Normalyn asked for Dr. Dambert. “Just a moment please,” the girl said, and then announced, away from the mouthpiece, “It’s for you, grandfather.”
After seconds, a sturdy voice announced, “Lucas Dambert.”
Easily, Normalyn said, “Dr. Dambert, please forgive me for disturbing you. My name is Normalyn Morgan. I’m doing research for a book on the life of Marilyn Monroe and—”
“You want to know what occurred between us!” the voice expressed immediate delight. “Why, the matter must be getting bruited about—another young lady interviewed me not long ago. Well, I don’t mind talking about it.” He was eager. “We were going to run away, Miss Monroe and I, to Phoenix, in Arizona, and we—”
A huge sigh interrupted his recollection. “Oh, young lady, I’m making that up. That happens only in my memory. What really occurred is that, once, she kissed me. Will you include that in your book? I always look in every new book about her, you know, and it’s never there.”
Normalyn promised that she would.
“Just say that, once, she kissed me on the lips,” the old professor said, and then his voice faded: “So sad, that beautiful, intelligent woman killing herself. If only—”
Normalyn listened to his wishes that Marilyn might have turned to him that night. They would have had another intelligent conversation, and she wouldn’t have— . . .
Normalyn thanked him, promised him again she would include him in her book. Yes, she thought, someday she might; she might just write a book some day. . . . The interview had made her sad, although she had gathered some evidence of the reliability of the youngwoman at auditions.
Suddenly, Normalyn needed to verify something else. She dialed Information again. No, there was no listing fo
r Stanley Smith in Palm, California, nor anywhere in the area— Wait, there was a number but it was unlisted. . . . Normalyn hung up.
David Lange had told her Stan would not have asked where she had obtained his number because he was listed, not difficult to locate. All her questions David Lange had laid to rest so easily about Stan were even more strongly aroused, now that she knew that in calling him that one day she had reenacted an event in Marilyn Monroe’s life. She found in her purse the telephone number she had called to reach Stan, the number David Lange had written for her. She dialed it. Stan answered! She listened to the despised voice, listened, listened longer as he demanded to know who was calling. “This is Normalyn,” she said, and then she hung up.
Her fear about calling the doctor and his wife had been exorcised by her sudden call to Stan. She dialed the number Lady Star had left in the note under her door.
The woman who answered was instantly delighted. “Yes, Lady Star did call.” She gave Normalyn careful, considerate directions on how to get to their house: “It’s just blocks away from where you are, child.” She added, “Dr. Crouch and I are most eager for your visit.” They would expect her . . . within the hour?
After dinner at a nearby coffee shop, Normalyn made herself up to look the way she had the night she had gone with the Dead Movie Stars to the Silent Scream, the way Troja had first made her up. It surprised her how easy it was today. She moistened red lips, darkened long lashes. Her hair tumbled into place on its own. Again, she painted a beauty mark on the side opposite the one on the star’s cheek.
Thirty-Five
“You look just like her! Doctor! I believe this may be the right young lady!” Too vain for needed glasses, the woman squinted at Normalyn. In her careful seventies, Mrs. Crouch was petite, with attentively coiffed silver-blue hair. She was dressed as if to go out to dine. Her clothes were out of date, but in fine condition.
The lovely home of Dr. and Mrs. Crouch nestled in one of several blocks-long strips that had survived the pillage of neglect in the declined neighborhoods off Hollywood Boulevard. Hidden vapory lights created sparklers of color where sprinklers watered the wide rolling lawn at night. A tall spiked fence enclosing the premises camouflaged as decoration; a sign with a red thunderbolt warned that the house was wired against intruders. Normalyn had been let into the grounds by an electronic buzz that released the gate for only seconds.
