As the tears turned into sobs, Dr. Pinkoff wrapped his arms around her and let her cry. “Call me Irv.”
Being in the freak show was hard at first, but the other performers—both jokers and non-jokers—made her feel welcome. She put up with the gawks and catcalls (“Oink! Oink!” the kids liked to shout at her) for three months until the Menagerie nightclub opened, and she quickly secured a job as a cocktail waitress. The skimpy costume was straight out of Frederick’s of Hollywood, but it was a small price to pay; the clientele was both jokers and nats (naturals) and the gawking was somewhat more tolerable here.
Her friend with the third eye had been right about something else: within weeks a new store opened on the pier, opened by a once-famous French character actor, now known only as Anonyme (Anonymous) and constantly masked to hide his presumably deformed features. La Jetée de Masques carried everything from plush hooded cloaks, dark veils, Halloween fright masks, Hollywood movie star masks, even macabre replicas of actual plaster “death masks” of Hollywood celebrities, the latter starting at a hundred bucks a pop. La Jetée de Masques was an instant success with jokers who wanted a respite from the gawkers who came to the pier, or who simply ached to go out to a movie or take a walk without being shunned or taunted.
Trina tried going out wearing her Betty Grable mask a few times, but the mask itself practically announced she was a joker and she could still feel people’s apprehension and fear as they passed her with a sideways glance. And when HUAC (and later, Joseph McCarthy) began attacking the aces—genuine American heroes, for God’s sake—she realized that none of them, aces or jokers, was truly safe, and she only donned a mask and left the pier to buy groceries or visit doctors.
Fourteen years after she arrived, she was still at the Menagerie, and the pier had evolved into a full-blown Jokertown, reviled by the bluenoses in L.A. but self-supporting and profitable. Walter Newcomb died in 1955, but his family remained committed to the pier’s independence even in the face of the vitriol of anti-joker columnists like Hedda Hopper.
These days she worked the late shift on weekends and first shift—afternoons—during the week. This made it easier for her to avoid Bongo’s ardent tentacles (in the heat of day he was cooling his heels in one of the refrigerated hotel units up the pier). In the afternoon, the customers were less drunk and more intent on watching joker dancers like Iris, whose invisible epidermis allowed her blood, skeleton, and internal organs to be seen twirling around the stripper’s pole. Her billing was “Iris, the Human X-Ray.”
On Trina’s first late shift of the next weekend, Bongo was back—but quick to apologize for his behavior the previous weekend. “I’m, like, on the wagon, I promise,” he said. She accepted the apology and was impressed when Bongo ordered club soda instead of Jim Beam—and did so for the rest of the evening. He still gazed at her like a lovelorn calf, but he kept his arms to himself, and that was just fine with her.
* * *
Celebrities were nothing new to the pier, whether it was actors with a casual curiosity about what went on here, or those like the late Brant Brewer, star of the Captain Cathode TV show, whose sexual proclivities for jokers had been well known here. But the short, dark-haired man who strode up the pier today was someone new.
It was a hot August day and he was comfortably wearing slacks and a polo shirt and not the suit and tie most of America was used to seeing him in—but there was no mistaking his face, his voice, or the lit cigarette he held clenched in one hand. Bob Louden—once the frog-faced boy at Pink’s freak show, now the concessionaire who ran the shooting gallery—saw him and quipped, “Hey, man, you’re too late. We’re already in the Twilight Zone.”
Rod Serling laughed a warm, hearty laugh, approached the frog-faced man, and extended a hand without hesitation. “Call me Rod.”
“I’m Bob.”
“Let me try my hand at your game. See if my shooting has improved any since the war.”
Word quickly spread that the man behind The Twilight Zone was here, shaking hands with everyone he met—jokers or nats—chatting, laughing, signing autographs. Irv Pinkoff gave Serling a guided tour of the freak show, and he greeted everyone in it as the professional performers they were and, most importantly of all, as people. He seemed absolutely genuine and totally unlike the usual Hollywood assholes who visited Jokertown.
By the time he walked into the Menagerie, Trina had heard he was here and thought maybe he was too good to be true. When he sat down at one of her tables and lit a cigarette, she duly approached him with her standard question: “Hi, I’m Trina. Get you something to drink?”
He took in her face and just smiled warmly. Not even a flicker of disgust. “Nice to meet you, Trina, I’m Rod. I’ll have a scotch.”
She nodded, got his scotch at the bar, and when she returned, he had already smoked his cigarette down to a nub. He stubbed it out in an ashtray, thanked her for the drink, then downed it in one swallow.
She studied him a moment, then couldn’t help but noting, “You don’t … sound like you do on your show.”
He laughed, a warm infectious laugh. “You mean my ‘television voice’? That’s what my daughters call it.”
She smiled. “Can I ask you something?”
He lit another cigarette. “Sure.”
“Why are you here? At the pier?”
He took a drag on his cigarette and exhaled a plume of smoke. “Ah. Short question, long answer. Set me up again and I’ll tell you.”
She obliged, but when she brought him another shot, he didn’t down it right away. “As you obviously know,” he said, “I produce a show called The Twilight Zone.”
“Yes, I’ve seen it, when I’m not on shift here.” She hesitated, then added, “I think my favorite is the one about the man who … walks back in time. To his childhood. I … I really liked that one.”
Serling seemed to take in the wistfulness in her tone and nodded. “Yes. I think we all yearn to return to our youth, for one reason or another. I know I do.” He took a swallow of scotch. “The Twilight Zone has been extremely fortunate. It’s been a Top Ten show ever since its debut. And I think that has a lot to do with the world we’ve all been living in since September of 1946. If people hadn’t already seen the reality of spacemen and people with strange abilities, Twilight Zone might be languishing in the ratings right now, instead of being at the top.”
“So?”
“So … I’d like to acknowledge that. I’d like to do something for those of you who have been most adversely affected by the wild card virus. I want to break the blacklist against jokers appearing on TV.”
Trina was taken aback by that. “Wow. Really? What about Hedda Hopper?”
Serling grinned. “Fuck Hedda Hopper.”
Trina laughed. Serling went on, “Our ratings give me a certain amount of capital with the network, and this is how I choose to spend it.”
Another customer came in, Trina apologized and went to take the man’s order. When she came back, Serling startled the hell out of her by asking, “Trina, have you ever done any acting?”
“Uh … I played Patty in Junior Miss in high school. But there is no way in hell I’d show this face on television!”
Serling said gently, “It’s not your features that got my attention. You have kind eyes and a sweet voice. That’s what I need in this particular story. It’s a parable about the dangers of conformity … it’s called ‘The Eye of the Beholder.’ I wrote it specifically with the joker situation in mind. I hope you won’t be offended by it—it’s meant to shock, but then to play against viewers’ expectations.
“I can have the script messengered to you tomorrow, and if you’re interested, I’d like to bring you in to audition for the director, Doug Heyes.”
Audition? Her? For a TV show? Was this real? But this man wasn’t like the usual producer who came to the club, promising stardom to joker women (or men), then inviting them back to his place to talk it over. Rod Serling was all business.
“You
don’t understand. I—we—we’re all safe here. I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that.”
“I do understand that, Trina. But wouldn’t you like more out of life than you can have on this pier? This—pardon my expression—ghetto?”
Trina had never described the Jokertown on the pier with that word, but hearing it come from Serling it sounded … sadly appropriate.
She hesitated before replying, “Well … it couldn’t hurt to read the script.”
“That’s great. Thank you, Trina. Write down your address and it’ll be delivered tomorrow morning.”
Trina scribbled down her name and address on his bar chit. He took the chit and paid for his six dollars of scotch with a fifty-dollar bill. “Keep the change. I’ll write my office number on the script … call me if you have any questions.”
He left, leaving Trina shocked, bewildered, and a little terrified.
The next morning a messenger rapped on the door to her apartment. The young man had obviously been warned about her appearance, but she still saw a glint of fear in his eyes as he stared at her. “Uh, delivery from MGM Studios,” he said, handing her a manila envelope, then beating it out of there as quickly as he could.
She had three hours before her shift began at the club, so she sat down and opened the envelope. She slid out the twenty-six-page script, and there was a note attached to it:
* * *
Trina, I hope you’ll be intrigued by this story. The role you’d be auditioning for is the Room Nurse. Also enclosed are the “sides,” the scene that will be used for your audition.
Best Wishes,
Rod Serling
* * *
Trina started reading. The story was set in a hospital in what appeared to be some sort of future society that prizes “glorious conformity” and condemns “diversification.” The main character, Janet Tyler, is a woman whose face is wrapped in bandages. We never see her face, nor, according to the script, do we get a clear view of the nurses and doctors around her. Apparently, Janet is horribly deformed, and the other characters talk about her behind her back with a mix of pity and disgust. But her doctor and the room nurse are kind and sensitive when dealing with her. As Janet waits for the day when the bandages are removed to see if her treatment was successful, we learn that in this society only eleven such treatments are allowed—after that the patient must be sent to “a special area where others of your kind have been congregated.” The parallels were clear: the “special area” is a ghetto, not unlike the one in which Trina was living.
But then Janet’s bandages are removed, and contrary to expectations she is a “startlingly beautiful” woman—and when we finally see the doctors and nurses, they are the deformed ones: “Each face is more grotesque than the other.”
Trina felt a flash of anger that she had been offered this role because of her own “grotesque” appearance. But who was she kidding? That’s what she was. And by the end of the script—after Janet tries to run away, only to be gently captured by the doctor and nurse—Serling’s intent became crystal clear. Janet is introduced to a handsome man from the “special” area where her kind are segregated. At first, because she shares the same cultural standards of her society, she is repulsed by his appearance. But he gently reminds her of an old saying: “A very, very old saying … beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
Trina put the script down. She was buzzing with nervous apprehension at the idea of showing her face on network television after hiding here on the pier for fourteen years. But maybe, she thought, America needed to see her face. Needed to see themselves as the monsters and to see jokers like her as real people and not freaks. It seemed to her that this script—this show—could be the equivalent of those sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina, for Negro civil rights. Not a solution, but a necessary first step.
When she looked at it that way … she could hardly say no.
* * *
Even so, she asked permission from her fellow residents on the pier: “This could affect you too,” she said. The majority of them told her to do it: “What more can they do to us?” Iris the dancer asked. “Screw ’em if they can’t take the heat.” Trina called Serling and said she’d audition; his secretary told her to come in at one p.m. the next day, and a car would be sent to pick her up at noon.
The following day, Trina put on a Doris Day mask—Que sera, sera!—as she waited at the foot of the pier. At noon, a big black limousine picked her up, the driver studiously betraying no reaction when she took the mask off once inside. He drove her through downtown Santa Monica on their way to the MGM Studios, where Twilight Zone was filmed, in Culver City. The car windows were tinted so no one could see in, but Trina could look out without fear of being seen. She felt a thrill, tinged with melancholy, as she gazed out at the familiar streets of her childhood. Even more thrilling was when the limo approached the entrance gate to MGM, a grand mock-Greek colonnade with a sign proclaiming it as METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER. All at once it was 1939 again and she was nine years old, sitting in Loews Theatre as the MGM lion roared at the start of The Wizard of Oz. But this part was far from Oz, just a collection of drab, nondescript office buildings and sound stages; it was here the limo driver dropped her off, at the production offices for Twilight Zone.
Trina took a deep breath and entered. Inside it looked like an ordinary business office with secretaries sitting at desks typing or answering phones. She stopped at the first desk, cleared her throat, and said, “Excuse me. I’m Trina Nelson, I’m here to see Mr. Heyes?”
Clearly the staff had been prepared for her and the secretary just smiled at her. “Of course, they’re waiting for you. Follow me.” She led Trina to Mr. Heyes’s office and opened the door.
“Miss Nelson is here.”
Serling got up from a chair and clasped her hand in welcome. “Trina, thanks for coming in. We’re all excited to hear you read.”
There were a lot more people here than she had expected. “You mean I’m supposed to do this out loud?” she joked. Everyone laughed.
Serling introduced her to the producer, Buck Houghton, a distinguished-looking man with silver gray hair; the casting director, Ethel Winant, who wore black spectacles and had conservatively cropped brown hair; and the episode’s director, Douglas Heyes, a handsome man with a high forehead. “Thank you for coming in, Trina,” Heyes said, shaking her hand. “I know this couldn’t have been an easy decision for you.”
They all sat in chairs opposite one for Trina.
“It’s a really good script,” Trina said nervously. “I hope my reading won’t embarrass you, Mr. Serling.”
“Please—Rod. And I’m sure it won’t.”
Ethel Winant explained, “I’ll be reading the part of Janet Tyler in the scene with you, Miss Nelson.”
Trina nodded and took out her “sides.” This was it—showtime.
Heyes noted, “Rod’s description of the room nurse is ‘firm first, kindly second.’ Firm, not hard—we want to hear that kindness, that sympathy in her voice. And since we don’t see her face for much of the story…”
Surprisingly, he got up, turned his chair around, and sat facing away from Trina. “I’m doing this with all the actors. I want to hear their voices only, as if we were casting a radio play.”
Trina, startled, looked to Serling, who saw her unease, smiled, and said, “I started in radio and now I seem to be back in it.” He laughed that infectious laugh of his, which eased Trina’s nervousness.
She and Ethel Winant ran through the scene together:
Ethel said, “Nurse?”
Trina fought back a flurry of anxiety and read the line: “Brought you your sleeping medicine, honey.”
“Is it night already?”
The dialogue was mostly chitchat for the next page, until they came to Janet’s line, “When … when will they take the bandages off? How long?”
Trina put hesitation, awkwardness, and yet a gentleness in her reply: “Until … until they decide whether they can fix up y
our face or not.”
“Janet” talked about how bad she knew she looked, remembering how people had always turned away from her and how the first thing she remembered was a little child “screaming when she looked at me.”
Tears welled in Trina’s eyes as Ethel read Janet’s speech about never wanting to be beautiful, or even loved—she just wanted people not to scream when they looked at her. Trina struggled to keep her emotions in check. Then “Janet” asked again when the bandages would come off, and that was Trina’s cue.
The sympathy, the kindness, in Trina’s voice was more than just acting. “Maybe tomorrow,” she said. “Maybe the next day. You’ve been waiting so long now … it really doesn’t make too much difference whether it’s two days or weeks now, does it?”
And that was the end of the scene. Trina exhaled in relief. She looked up to see Serling and Miss Winant gazing raptly at her. Did that mean she did well or did terribly?
Doug Heyes got up, turned around, and said quietly, “That was very nice, Trina. Would you excuse us a moment as we compare notes?”
Oh God, Trina thought as she stepped out of the office. They hated me! Will they give me a second chance?
She waited by the secretary’s desk for thirty long seconds, and then the office door burst open and Doug Heyes, a big smile on his face, extended a hand to her and said, “Welcome to the Twilight Zone, Trina.”
Serling smiled and quipped, “He stole my line.” Everyone laughed. “Congratulations, Trina.”
There was barely time for her to feel her elation before business matters took over. Ethel produced a contract and explained, “You’ll be paid $600 for a three-day shoot. Is that acceptable, Miss Nelson?”
This sounded like a fortune compared to what Trina made at the Menagerie. “Yes. Fine.”
“We built an extra day into the schedule,” Heyes said, “so I can give you a crash course in acting for television. I’ll be blocking out the actors’ moves more than usual, to avoid tipping the ending to the audience.” He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Now we’ve got to get you to makeup so we can cast a mold of your face.”
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