by John Rechy
“I can come into Los Angeles next weekend.” Michael’s voice was firm. “Would you like us to get together then? There’s a play—Six Characters in Search of—”
“Yes,” she accepted before he finished.
There was a pause. “Goddamn!" Michael said. “You haven’t changed your mind. This is the first time.”
He’d been expecting to have to overcome her usual vacillation—but she had felt none. Normalyn was glad to laugh—to distance David Lange and his world. “That’s because I’m sure that I want to see you,” she let herself say. . . . But before that would happen, she had to return to the dusky office.
“I’ll pick you up at your house.”
“I can take a bus.” Normalyn wanted to extend mutuality.
“I’d like to pick you up.”
He was precluding her not turning up. “Okay, yes,” she agreed—and just as easily to herself, too. Setting this date ahead assured that her life would begin no matter what she learned in the interim. “And I’d like to see the Watts Towers!” she told Michael.
“Goddamn!" He was elated. “Wait till you see them!”
Oh, if only the expectation of being with him was all she was facing, Normalyn thought when she hung up. But she was confronted with a deadline for information buried in the past. She glanced at her watch, not letting herself notice the time.
Troja observed casually, “Got two boyfriends now, hon, Ted and—” She reached for Normalyn’s arm, inviting her to sit next to her at the kitchen counter.
“Ted’s gone,” Normalyn said. She told Troja that he was one of the three men who had tried to rape her—but then had stopped the attack.
“You did right to let him go,” Troja said angrily. Her hand clasped Normalyn’s. “Ain’t life sad and bafflin’ sometimes, hon?”
“Most of the time,” Normalyn said. “But it doesn’t have to be always," she added hastily.
“I haven’t made it easier for you,” Troja admitted.
Normalyn did not disagree. Without wanting to, she had begun recording each passing minute.
“Haven’t even listened to you, and lots of things been happening in your life. Selfish,” Troja judged herself. “That’s how Kirk used to do to me sometimes. Like everything was happening to him, even when there wasn’t anything left, except remembering.” She continued cautiously; “Strange thing today. When I went on a studio audition, a grip working there—he wasn’t like Kirk; no one in the world can be that special, ever—this grip looked at me, you know, smiling. Now that’s not rare.” She automatically touched her curves. “But this was: I smiled back, first time since Kirk died. Not all that much, but—”
Normalyn welcomed the smile that indicated how “much” that really was.
“There I went again—like it’s only me.” Troja offered strictest attention: “I’m listening, hon—want to hear everything about you!”
Normalyn heard in her mind the snap of each second. She covered her watch with her hand, in order not to look at it. She smiled at Troja—all she could think to do to keep Troja from suspecting—
“Something’s wrong, hon. What is it?”
No longer attempting to disguise tension, Normalyn told Troja all she could cram into these enclosing moments: what she had learned from Sandra, about Enid and Marilyn Monroe and Norma Jeane, the warring identities: “Just like in their game, Enid kept holding on to Norma Jeane, and Marilyn wanted to leave her behind, with all her unhappiness—”
“Far, far behind, but you can’t, she couldn’t,” Troja understood.
Had Enid seen the cruel paradox that she, too, was finally conquered by the same despair, the same darkness? Did that account for some of the enraged confusions of the last years? Normalyn wondered. . . . Rushing—not wanting to estimate that more than an hour had to have elapsed, almost two hours—Normalyn told Troja about the events in David Lange’s office just earlier, the promised unraveling of knots “very soon.” She did not tell her of the narrowing time. “And then I can find out—”
“If you’re Marilyn’s daughter.” Troja pronounced the enormous possibility and stared closely at Normalyn.
Normalyn had glimpsed that possibility in her fantasy earlier—and veered away from it. Now she voiced a strange sensation: “It’s so hard to think that someone like her”—she pointed to Troja’s books of photographs of the greatest movie star in the world—“could possibly be—” She couldn’t finish. She started again: “That someone I never really saw could be— . . . It’s like being born eighteen years old!” Enid’s words—suddenly her own—resonated.
Troja got up, went to her books.
Normalyn glanced at her watch, again not allowing herself to register the hour, but she was aware that another minute was passing . . . another. . . . She wanted to stretch time! Earlier, David had surprised her with Mildred’s presence. Would he again, with the person he called their “accuser”? Was that the reason for the designated three hours?
Troja had returned with one of her favorite books—Bert Stern’s The Last Sitting. “She’s all here, hon. This is how you can ‘see’ her—who she was—and is, always.” She flipped through the photographs.
Normalyn felt moved, saddened, awed by the unreally beautiful woman—beautiful and haunted, as if hurt had created her beauty. In the photographs there recurred a mixture of fear and exultation, then only fear, then only exultation. Even when she was most sexual, she could look lost. . . . If she had lived, what kind of mother would she have been? . . . Normalyn stopped Troja’s hand from turning a page. She looked for one she had glimpsed earlier. No—she rejected one of the star with her head bowed, surrendered. This one! She studied the photograph of the woman, looking her age, thirty-five—looking beautiful, dressed in black, one hand pressed pensively to her lips—deciding— . . . No, that was not the photograph Normalyn wanted to locate either—but this might be: In almost the same pose, the move star seemed to be touching the beginning of a smile, cherishing it. Normalyn’s hand smoothed the photograph.
“Hon, look!” Troja had turned some pages. “It’s yew!” It was a photograph of the star looking like a very young woman, her hands at her side delighting in the fullness of her skirt, her eyes wide, expectant, her lips— . . . About to smile? Withdraw their smile?
“Do I look sad, too?” Normalyn asked.
“Sometimes, yes,” Troja answered softly. “But also like this.” And there she was, Marilyn Monroe, astonished by how much one moment of life could contain. “And so pretty, and so stubborn,” Troja added slyly.
“Determined,” Normalyn corrected, studying the picture.
The last pages of the book revealed photographs the movie star had rejected, drawing X’s and slashes through them. Reproduced now and enlarged with the pictures, those marks looked like smears of her blood. . . . Normalyn turned away from those, to another picture she had glimpsed: In it, out of all the vulnerability, the movie star had seemed, for golden instants, to realize suddenly that she was Marilyn Monroe, her head thrown back, triumphant in her creation!
Now Normalyn found the one she had really been looking for: a full closeup in which the movie star’s face—serious, beautiful—was partially shaded by a slanted hat under which her eyes looked away from the camera, into herself, understanding and accepting her completed life. . . . That is how Normalyn saw the photograph in which Marilyn Monroe looked like Enid, just like Enid. She placed her hand over the photograph and held it there. After moments she closed the book.
Troja waited for Normalyn to order her reactions before she said, “Hon, there’s a line Marilyn says in her last movie, when she knows a hurting part of her life is over, a new part beginning: ‘If a child could be brave from the beginning— . . .’ What she means—what it means to me—is that no one can be born brave because you got to learn to be brave. Know how? By protesting what hurts. That makes you be brave. There’s lots of beginnings, hon, lots of endings, too—and not just being born, nor just dying. Every new beginning is b
rave, hon. You and me know that. Maybe a new beginning needs even more courage than the last one. Know why? Cause hope’s been shoved around more. I just bet Marilyn knew all that. At the last, she just didn’t want to begin any more, for whatever reasons—just needed a final ending, a rest—like Kirk. That takes another kind of courage. Gotta honor that, too,” she said to herself, and added admiringly, “and they sure as hell had their share of brave beginnings!”
“Troja—”
The telephone jangled!
Normalyn answered. She heard David Lange’s tightly calm voice: “Normalyn, you have exactly one more hour to be here. I’ve alerted the person I’ll put you in touch with, who is ready to see you.” His voice became a private whisper: “It can’t wait any more.” Then he said firmly, “One more hour, exactly, Normalyn, and I swear you’ll be in touch with the person who will confirm everything.”
Confirm? Then he already knew? . . . “Yes,” Normalyn told him, then her finger pressed down on the telephone’s connection. David Lange’s voice resounded mournfully in her mind. Had it been slurred? He had asserted his promise to take her into the heart of the mystery. It can’t wait any more. . . . Was he trying to solve another mystery, his own?
Normalyn told Troja about the narrowing time for discovery. “One hour. Less now.”
“I’ll drive you!” Troja instantly had the car keys in her hand.
Normalyn made no motion to leave. She opened her purse. She took out Enid’s letter.
“Got to find out!” Troja coaxed.
“I’m not sure—” Normalyn listened attentively to her own words.
“You got just enough time left!” Troja urged.
“I haven’t!” Normalyn’s body bolted. “I don’t have any more time—no more time to live with other people’s ghosts and pain—”
Troja offered desperately: “I’ll go with you, stay with you if you want me to. If you don’t go—!” She left the words for Normalyn to finish.
Normalyn stared down at the letter that had dominated her life since the morning of Enid’s funeral in Gibson. It looked different—as if it had changed, or as if she were seeing it clearly for the first time. . . . N.J.R.I.R. That was how two unwanted children in a home had tried one moody, meaningful time to end a sad game, to end their own sadness.
Rest in peace, Norma Jeane!
That was Enid’s last message—that she allow “Norma Jeane,” finally, to rest. Whatever the two women had intended “Norma Jeane” to be at first—a fulfilled wish of escape from their unhappiness—she had been shaped out of their violent pasts, determined by others. Their “game” had turned fatal—for both of them. Enid was freeing her from the legacy of a stark, troubled past—theirs, “Norma Jeane’s,” the composite of their blurred identities. What she had learned from the two women would give her the courage to reject their shared “darkness,” inherit their strength.
Troja’s voice attempted control: “Half an hour left—less!”
Normalyn understood: With expressions of love from both of them, Enid had left the letter to let her choose who she would be—beyond them, and at age eighteen, the age of choices. She had only thought her life was in abeyance. It had started when she decided to leave Gibson. That’s how Enid had freed her—by guiding her into a journey within which she would discover them, the two women—and herself.
“You can still get there—just barely!” Troja pleaded.
Troja’s warning shook Normalyn out of clashing thoughts, rearranging themselves.
“Call him, tell him you’re on your way. You have to know, hon!” Troja insisted.
Yes! Normalyn ran to the telephone. She dialed one number, another, a third— She stopped.
“Hon, you’re so pale! Hon, you all right?”
Normalyn closed her eyes. She had perceived darkness and then she had seen it enclosing a faceless woman lying on a dark shoreline. It was Enid! No, it was Marilyn Monroe! Enid! Marilyn! . . . Then she knew: She had seen . . . herself on that black shoreline.
Normalyn opened her eyes. She banished the image. She pushed herself out of the roiling darkness. With all the strength she had gathered, she chose to move out of the blackness.
“Oh, hon, hon, you still got time. Call him!” Troja waited at the door.
Normalyn clutched all the papers Enid had left her. She walked to the small kitchen. She turned on a burner of the stove.
“No!” Troja understood.
Normalyn moved the letter toward the burner.
“Be sure—” Troja warned.
Normalyn held the letter over the fire.
The telephone!
“Don’t answer it!” Normalyn shouted at Troja. At the same time, she pulled back the letter. It fell to the floor with the other papers.
Troja had already picked up the telephone. She was holding it out, away from her ear. They both heard David Lange’s voice:
“Normalyn!”
Normalyn grasped the telephone. She heard David’s words screamed at her with anger and regret and pain: “Normalyn! I’ve known all along that you are her daughter—that’s why I could have turned you into her—and then I would have saved you as I promised long ago!” There was a long, terrifying moment of deepening silence.
Then Normalyn heard the horrible sound of a gunshot exploding in her ear.
She dropped the telephone.
She rushed back to where the letter and the papers had scattered. She gathered them. She held the letter over the burner.
“As long as you have the letter, you can still find out!” Troja shouted at her.
As long as I have the letter! Normalyn saw the flames touch it. Its edges curled inward without protest, a circle of fire slowly enclosed it until the letter was only a smear of ashes. Out of those ashes two voices would remain, for her only, in her memory, and in peace—both professing their love.
In a moment, Normalyn would feel the horror of David Lange’s act, his last attempt at— What? Purgation? Revenge extended to her as Marilyn’s daughter? . . . Normalyn moved away from the ashes of the letter and the other burned papers. She had saved the note on which Enid had recorded the moment of joy when the two girls had first become friends, and she had kept one birth certificate—the one Enid had left, designating an “unknown” father and identifying both women as her mother.
Feeling Troja’s hand on her shoulder, Normalyn closed her eyes. This darkness contained only the sounds of traffic, of nearby voices, someone’s distant joyful laughter—and she was aware of a summer breeze sighing into the house—sounds she heard, startled, as if for the first time in her life.
Fifty-Two
Los Angeles Tribune May 29, 1980
TWICE PULITZER AUTHOR
DAVID LANGE FOUND DEAD
LOS ANGELES—David Lange, well-known author, one-time syndicated columnist, and twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction, was found dead in his office last night. Death occurred from a self-administered gunshot wound, according to Coroner Tom Curela, who ruled the cause of death to be suicide. Lange was 50.
His body was discovered by Teresa de Pilar, 64, who called police. Miss de Pilar told reporters that she had an appointment that night with Lange. The meeting, which did not take place, “involved Marilyn Monroe’s daughter,” Miss de Pilar said. She identified herself as a “very distant acquaintance” of Lange and as a long-time associate of Alberta Holland, once a powerful figure in Hollywood politics. (See box story.)
At the time of his death, Lange was awaiting the fall publication of his fourth book, Last of the Heroes. According to Grove Press Publisher Barney Rosset, the book is “a bold examination of the real and symbolic accomplishments of John and Robert Kennedy.”
Lange’s first book, The Moral Imperative of Justice, won him his first Pulitzer Prize when he was 29. It has sold over 2 million copies, in over 20 languages. The following year, he became the first writer to win two consecutive Pulitzer Prizes when he was again honored, this time for The Un-Americans, an indictment
of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Committee on Un-American Activities. His book Images: Hollywood as Politics is an investigation into the impact of films on American social attitudes.
Lange began his newspaper career in 1954 as a reporter for the Wisconsin Tribune. In Los Angeles, he was briefly affiliated with gossip columnist Mildred Meadows, whom he later repudiated. He attributed the association to “youth and sheer folly.” Lange’s twice-weekly syndicated column, “Lange Reports,” was honored with the W. H. Berridge Award for Distinguished Journalism.
A campaign adviser in John F. Kennedy’s successful bid for the presidency, and one of Robert F. Kennedy’s earliest champions, Lange announced in November of 1963 his separation from the journalism that brought him fame and fortune. In the last of his syndicated columns, he attributed his separation to “personal considerations.” “For now I am retreating into the shadows,” he wrote.
In more recent years, Lange became a frequent figure on television and radio talk shows. He aroused criticism by announcing his “increasingly strong belief’ that through an “elaborate deception,” actress Marilyn Monroe had given birth, in secret, to a daughter “fathered by a man in very high office.” Becoming associated primarily with that subject, Lange became controversial, and his appearance on talk shows became less frequent.
In 1975, Lange acquired an interest in the widely circulated tabloid The Star Informer. That allowed him to continue his exploration into the last days of Marilyn Monroe’s life. In an irregular column and in featured stories in The Star Informer, Lange pursued the subject, finally announcing his determination to prove that Marilyn Monroe had a daughter, “who is very probably still alive and living in anonymity.” He extended his claims in recent years, asserting that the father of the movie star’s daughter would be revealed to be either John F. Kennedy or, “more probably, Robert F. Kennedy.” He made frequent references to “the child of two legends.”
