A Life in Parts

by Bryan Cranston

  “You’re theatrical. You can do it. And it pays $175 for two hours work.”

  Cash has a way of creating bravado. One hundred seventy five bucks was more than I made in a week. Despite my apprehension, despite my insecurities, I was in.

  Bob slipped an official document into his IBM Selectric, typed in my details, and, whoosh, out it came: my application for registering as a minister in the Universal Life Church. Bob had me sign it and explained that it went to the secretary of state of California and it would get a rubber-stamp approval. “By the time you send in the marriage certificate, you’ll be registered. Good to go.”

  He handed me a book. “Here’s Khalil Gibran. People like this passage: ‘For the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow’ and so on and so forth. Here is the marriage certificate. Fill out groom’s name, bride’s name. Fill out location, witness one, witness two. Fill it all out and we’ll send it to the secretary of state.” He handed me the address of the wedding, and his car keys. “Have fun!”

  I got on the morning boat to the mainland, hopped in Bob’s VW van (he had parked it at the terminal), and off I went. I arrived at the address Bob had jotted down for me. Could this be right? I was at the Van Nuys airport, a busy regional airstrip for private planes.

  I wandered around the airport, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt (I thought I should dress up for a wedding), shorts, and flip-flops. It was midsummer, so I had a sunburn—I called it a tan—and my hair was shoulder length and strawberry blond. I spotted a couple that looked dressed for an occasion. “Hey are you guys getting married?” They nodded, confused. “I’m, uh, the minister.” They looked me up and down. The bridal party appeared to be having second thoughts. I assured them that they were in good hands. “It’s going to be a memorable day! This is your day! I’m going to take good care of you!” I was trying to convince myself more than I was trying to assuage their concerns. “Where are we going to do this?”

  The groom smiled and looked up. “We’re getting married in the sky, bro.”

  We boarded a six-passenger plane. I knew I needed to take control. I started getting assertive, suggesting the best seat assignments. “I’ll sit up front with the pilot. Then come the bride and groom. Maid of honor and best man in the last row. All set.”

  I asked where we were headed. The groom told me that we were going to fly around and that they wanted to start the ceremony once we got a clear view of the Hollywood sign. We took off, and before long we were doing loops over the sign. We could start any time. My cue.

  I took a deep breath, twisted around in my seat, and began to yell out so that I could be heard over the twin engine props. “STAND TOGETHER, YET NOT TOO NEAR TOGETHER, FOR THE OAK TREE AND THE CYPRESS GROW NOT IN EACH OTHER’S SHADOW!” The bride and groom were holding hands, looking at me with moist-eyed sincerity. I was a nineteen-year-old kid, and they were looking at me as if I were the pope. I wanted to honor the faith they’d bestowed in me. I wanted to honor the solemnity of their commitment and make the performance believable. I wanted to do a good job. I started to improvise. “COMMUNICATE,” I screamed over the hum of the engine. “IT’S EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. I CAN SEE YOU LOVE EACH OTHER. CHERISH THAT LOVE. WHEN TIMES ARE HARD, THAT LOVE IS YOUR BEDROCK. IN SICKNESS AND HEALTH. RICHER OR POORER.”

  I could see the best man and the maid of honor leaning forward, straining to hear. “REPEAT AFTER ME. WITH THIS RING I THEE WED.” The yelling didn’t seem to diminish the power of the moment. They were nodding and crying.

  As I progressed, my confidence grew. By the end of the short ceremony I felt like a reverend. I yelled, “BY THE POWER VESTED IN ME BY THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA AND THE UNIVERSAL LIFE CHURCH, I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU HUSBAND AND WIFE . . . ” I paused—momentarily forgetting what came next—oh, right! “KISS HER, BRO!” He did. I turned around in my seat, facing front again, and exhaled. The pilot gave me an approving nod.

  I performed several more marriages through the years. Most of my couples were overbookings from Bob. But I married some friends and relatives, too. I married my cousin and my uncle. Not to each other. It was fun, not weird.

  Some people didn’t care for the pomp and circumstance of a formal wedding. Some people wanted a party rather than a church ceremony. I did a cowboy-themed wedding. I married a couple knee-deep in the water off Catalina, getting pushed around by the currents, trying to keep my footing as I soliloquized. I married a couple as an Elvis impersonator. Years later, when my brother agreed to marry a dear family friend from Britain, Julia, so she could stay in the country legally, I presided over their union wearing a bunny-rabbit costume left over from Halloween. I was the Reverend Bucky O’Hare.

  I’d say: “For the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow. —Kahlil Gibran.”

  “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast. —Corinthians.”

  “And if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with. —Stephen Stills.”

  When I married a couple of friends, Sandy and Steven, I did my whole oak tree and cypress thing, and then I said: “This love radiates through them so clearly and strongly, because you only get married once.” I paused. They looked at each other and then back at me. Everyone knew they’d both been married before. I continued, “You only get married once . . . in a while.” Wild laughter from my congregation.

  I married a Korean couple. They stood before me with bowed heads and grave expressions. They were petrified. They weren’t expecting the fun, secular service I had in store, so I had to adjust to suit their seriousness.The Universal Life Church would marry anyone, gay (only symbolically back then), straight, young, old, conservative, liberal . . . it didn’t matter. It was ahead of its time, progressive and inclusive, and all without a blood test, so I could have married siblings and I wouldn’t have known the difference. I occasionally wonder if some of the couples I married are still together and it suddenly dawns on them: “Holy shit! Honey, I think Walter White married us!”

  Student

  Not having any experience or guidance, I chose nearly all my classes within my major during my first year in junior college: Criminalistics and Police Systems and Practices and such. I did very well. I was sailing right along.

  So I was surprised when my counselor looked down at my transcript, shaking his head, and told me I needed electives. I was planning to transfer my credits to a four-year university the following year, and I thought I had to be completely nose to the grindstone: all criminal procedure all the time. My counselor told me no, in fact, admissions offices would want to see a well-rounded curriculum.

  All right. I gazed up to a large board above my head: ELECTIVE COURSES. Listed alphabetically. Abacus for Beginners. Archery. Acting. Wait—I thought of my traumatizing turn as Professor Flipnoodle and sighed. But it was just an elective. And it could be a good time. I signed up for two classes: Intro to Acting and Stagecraft.

  The first day of class was a typical September day for the San Fernando Valley: hot. The small classroom was crowded with kids and painted entirely in flat black. I felt like the walls themselves were a heat source. I learned later the black walls were purposefully neutral. The artistry of the work would supply the color.

  I looked around. Girls outnumbered boys, maybe eight to one. I didn’t mind that. The next thing I noticed was that the girls in acting class were much better looking than those in the police science courses. I didn’t mind that at all.

  The teacher handed out two-person scenes for us to perform. “You two do this one. You two take this.” I happened to be standing next to a cute brown-haired girl. By virtue of proximity we’d be acting partners. I smiled nervously at her. Nothing. I cast my eyes down on the paper.

  I turned my attention to the scene. The opening description read: A couple is making out on a park bench.

  I glanced up at the girl and then quickly back to the paper. Son of a bitch, she was really pretty. I read the first line again just to make sure I read it corr
ectly. A couple is making out on a park bench.

  I barely remember what the scene was about, and I have no clue what play it was from. I only recall that the boy was to break from the embrace and try to explain to the girl why they should start to see other people. I knew with absolute certainty that if the boy in the scene were somehow able to see the girl who was playing his girlfriend, he would never, ever break up with her.

  As I reviewed the scene I kept darting glances at my acting partner. She was busy chatting with a friend and hadn’t yet looked at the text. I worried that when she discovered our shared mission she would be dismayed that I was the leading man.

  She finally got around to focusing on the script. And she did the same thing I did after reading the opening sentence . . . looked up. I pretended to be gazing in the other direction as she assessed me. I glanced back and gave her a casual smile—no wholehearted grin. That would be too much. To my surprise she didn’t grimace or frown or show any sign of displeasure. She just cocked her head slightly to one side and pursed her lips. I guess you’d call it a pondering look. Technically, it was a neutral gesture, but I found it so sexy. I took her noncommittal glance as a major victory.

  Was I supposed to really kiss her? Really? I went to the teacher and whispered, “It says that the couple is making out . . . should we really, uh, make out, or just pretend to do it?” A valid question, I thought.

  The teacher didn’t think so and dismissed me: “You’re not in high school anymore.”

  Message received. I had to go for it. I was emboldened by the teacher’s answer. My heart quickened as I watched an hour of other students’ scenes. At last, my partner and I were called upon. The stage was set, just a bench; the rest was up to us to imagine.

  We sat down and I dropped my script on the floor. I’d pick it up when I needed it. I hoped she could handle what I was about to do. Ready or not here I come. I started to turn toward her—but she beat me to the punch. She kissed me wildly. Her hands roamed all over my neck and my chest and my legs. She thrust her body into mine, moaning with pleasure. I was delirious. I surrendered to our shared lust, rubbing, tapping, kissing—wait, what? Tapping?

  Yes, my upstage thigh was definitely being tapped. The girl was rubbing my body with one hand and tapping me with the other . . . but why? Was she performing some kind of dexterity test? Like patting her head and rubbing circles on her stomach at the same time? Whatever she was doing, she was amazingly adroit at it. A pro. And then it occurred to me: the scene! We have to do the scene!

  She was telling me, tapping me, as subtly as she could that it was up to me to start the dialogue—my character was supposed to pull away—not hers. I finally pushed away from her, took a gulp of air, and said . . . nothing. I forgot my line. I lunged for the papers on the floor and desperately looked for the opening line, but I was looking at page two.

  Before the kiss, I’d easily memorized my first line, “Beth, we need to talk . . . about us,” and left the script open to page two where I was to follow up with a long explanation. Only I didn’t count on having those first few words completely vanish from my brain because of all the kissing and rubbing and tapping.

  I recovered. The scene started to take off. Before I knew it, it was over. Strange how time seemed to speed up. The teacher gave us some notes. I heard nothing he said.

  At the break I casually approached my acting partner, who was smoking a cigarette. She exhaled a long plume of smoke, and I worked up the courage to say, “That went really well.”

  “It got off to a rough start,” she replied.

  “Yeah, sorry. But after that, I thought it went pretty great. We rebounded.”

  “I guess we did.” She gave me a little smile.

  Clearly we were simpatico, a potential match if ever there was one. Her kiss was all the clarity I needed. I went in for the close: “We should have lunch sometime.”

  She looked confused. And then she looked at me as if I were a lost puppy. “Oh,” she said without affect. “No.” Seeing that I was still in the dark, she added, “I have a boyfriend.”

  What? But you just kissed me as if I were the most desirable man on earth. You grinded your pelvis into mine and moaned as if you couldn’t get enough of me. That’s what I thought of saying. Instead, I feigned indifference. “Hey, that’s cool. You know, whatever.”

  Indifference was my go-to whenever I felt vulnerable. I was not mature enough to be honest and show surprise, even though that was my feeling. Utter shock. I felt like I was the victim of a practical joke. Her lips pursed again, this time it was more sorry than sexy. She might as well have patted me on the head and told me I reminded her of her little brother. But I remained inscrutable. No sign of surprise or disappointment or confusion.

  She walked away.

  She wasn’t into me. I mean not at all. She was acting. She was given the task of pretending to be hot for me and that is what she did. I had to sit down. What just happened?

  A month later I wouldn’t remember her name. But she left me with something I’d never forget: I learned that you could so fully inhabit a character that you could fool others, move others. With talent and commitment, you could seduce or terrify. You could make someone feel utter hate or desolation or compassion or even love.

  Biker

  Ed passed his entrance exams easily. The next step was to start the training academy and pick up his gun and badge at the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

  At twenty-two, he was fully legal. He was a man. And yet he wasn’t sure what he wanted in life. When he got the call from the sheriff’s department to confirm his acceptance, he hesitated.

  I was also tentative about what to do next. My junior college experience gave me one orderly year of studying police science, and one year of emotional chaos in acting classes. I had enough credits to transfer to a university. But now I wasn’t sure what my field should be.

  If I stayed the course and chose the path that aligned with my aptitude, was I embarking on a life of compromise and regret? If I threw it all away and jumped into acting, was I being impulsive? Foolish? I’d seen what became of actors like my father. That all-or-nothing approach to stardom exacted a heavy toll. I knew an actor’s life would be hard. It could even be tragic. My father’s failure as an actor had contributed to the implosion of my family. He wanted success more than anything, and it eluded him. Maybe because he wanted it so desperately.

  I didn’t know why he left. I had ideas; ego and alcohol were factors. But trying to boil it down to one reason was a loser’s game.

  He left. That was all. He pursued a life without us. I was mature enough to accept that ours was not a unique condition. But I think his absence was what left me struggling in those years, grasping and Sneaky Pete-ing. I was still lost.

  And I didn’t really have anyone other than Ed to talk to about how I felt or about what I should do with my life. Who knows where our dad was? And by that time my mom was drinking steadily. She was there, but not really there at all. By now she was remarried to a drinking buddy named Peter, and they’d moved to Fresno, dragging Amy with them. In subsequent years, they pinged over to Massachusetts and then down to Florida, where they bought a motel. It didn’t work out in the end. Terrible idea, really. No matter her physical location, my mom was flirty and coquettish, sashaying around the house singing Peggy Lee’s anthem of loneliness, “Is That All There Is?”

  I had my brother. And we were on our own. And we were at a crossroads. We had talked about doing a big trip for a while. Why not now? Why commit to a job in the sherriff’s department when we could see the country? We could be free. Would there ever be a better time to go?

  It was 1976. The Bicentennial. The pageantry was extensive: fireworks and Spirit of ’76 public-service announcements made by men in Founding Father costumes and tall-masted ships in the nation’s large harbors. Small towns painted their fire hydrants red, white, and blue. The Vietnam War was behind us at last. It had been three years since Nixon had tried to make ou
r country’s loss more palatable with his Peace with Honor speech. They stopped the draft the year before my brother came of age. He’d had to register and his number was low, in the single digits. Had he been one year older, he would have gone.

  Jimmy Carter would soon be president-elect. And despite the occasional gas shortages and high inflation, the country was starting to feel less fraught with strife than it had felt during the war. With the Steppenwolf road anthem “Born to Be Wild” playing in our heads, we blasted out of California on motorcycles for parts unknown. Duration unknown. Everything was unknown.

  My Honda 550cc was loaded, my saddlebags and scoot boot filled with the essentials: a sleeping bag and pup tent, a mess kit and camp stove, a change of clothes and all-weather gear. I had a full tank of gas and $175 in my pocket. Ed’s bike had a bumper sticker on its rear end: “I’m Hot to Trot.”

  It only took a few days to get the hang of life on the road. Ed and I developed hand signals to indicate our needs. Gas, food, sleep, mechanical issue, whatever: we had a signal for it. Since we had no money to spare, we were sleeping under the stars most nights. In the country we’d find a cozy patch of grass and bed down. But most cities prohibited sleeping on open land, public or private, so on weekdays we’d seek peaceful sleep at churches, synagogues, and temples. If we happened to hit a town during a weekend, when houses of worship were otherwise occupied, our search shifted to schools.

  One evening in Yuma, Arizona, we were in a middle school playing field, lounging in our sleeping bags and heating up some Ovaltine on our miniburner as a nightcap. Born to be wild. All of a sudden four or five police cars burst into view. Having the background in police procedure, we were out of our sleeping bags with our arms stretched out wide before they’d gotten out of their cars. They surrounded us, guns drawn, barking orders. Ed and I glanced at each other. We calmly complied and lay prone on the ground, model suspects. With one knee in our backs, officers patted us down while others carefully searched our bikes and belongings. One officer sifted through our powdered beverage hoping to find narcotics. To his dismay, he found only Ovaltine. We were clean.