by Nancy Bacon
He and I went to bed as easily as we always had but he was very concerned with touching me or not touching me. His hands would tremble as he neared my breast area and then he would quickly put them around me, stroking my back. He asked me several times if I was all right, did it hurt to hug me, things like that, and I was put off by it. It made me more conscious of it and I found myself joking in an effort to cover my embarrassment and sadness. The joking stuck and I discovered that it was the only way I was going to be able to handle the loss of my ‘fantastic tits’ as they had been dubbed by many photographers and lovers.
Six months after the mastectomy I went back into the hospital to have silicone implants put in. The only thing that had kept me going those past months had been the knowledge that I could have my breasts reconstructed as soon as I was totally healed and there was no danger of infection.
I spent only five days in the hospital this time and came out with a cute, pert little set of 36-B’s. I was at my slimmest, 105 lbs., and found that I liked the new image of myself as sleek and lean, rather than sexily voluptuous as I had been.
For the next year and a half, I must admit that I really went wild. I guess I felt that I owed it to myself. I had gone through a devastating experience which was not only mind-blowing and painful, but as expensive as hell.
Like most restless young women about town, I had never given a thought to life or medical insurance so I was stuck with an enormous hospital fee. I was unable to work for two months and I fell behind in my house payments, which resulted in a foreclosure and forced me and my daughter out on the street. I rented a smaller house and forced myself back to work.
Life was beautiful, I was alive and I had a brand-new set of boobs that felt as natural as my real ones had felt: Soft, pliant, the skin over them smooth to the touch, the implants soon felt like a real part of me. If any nagging doubts about my sexuality entered my head I would immediately cover it with a wisecrack.
I remember one night I was going out to a party of some sort and my date, eyeing my sheer blouse and bare breasts, remarked, ‘Why not? The way you dress everybody in town has seen them!’
‘Oh, no they haven’t,’ I replied. ‘These boobs are brand new—no one’s seen them before!’ The jokes were still pulling me through.
About a year and a half after I had the implants put in, I developed an infection in one side and discovered a number of hard little lumps all over my pretty new boobs… on both sides. There were several under each breast along the scar, solid as a rock and stuck fast to the scar tissue, and many more along the edges of the implant, all the way around both of them.
I was terrified of calling the doctor. I would die before I lost my breasts a second time, but after a week both breasts were so swollen and red and painful I had no choice but to make an appointment. The doc gave me pills for the infection, instructions to apply cold compresses to the swollen area—then he told he was afraid the implants would have to come out. He made the arrangements.
I went home, got roaring drunk and smoked everything I could get my hands on. By this time, I was well acquainted with the procedure; the awful drains, the slashed chest, black, ugly stitches and the pain.
I was out of the hospital in five days and back at my typewriter in less than a month. The bills wouldn’t wait for me to take the required time of six weeks to heal properly. I medicated myself to get through it all.
I still found myself clinging to the men I had known for a long time and who knew all about my boob history. But I’m friendly and optimistic, and soon I was going out, meeting new people, new men. I met a really super guy, Jerry Morris, and was attracted at once. He knew nothing about my background and I was suddenly faced with telling a stranger about my deformity. I couldn’t just tell him without a lengthy explanation about the implants, infections, etc. I thought maybe I’d just go ahead and keep on my padded bra and try to discourage him from touching me there.
But that didn’t seem like a very good idea. He was sure to find out, and what then? What if it turned him off so much he wouldn’t want to continue? That wouldn’t be fair to either one of us. I knew I should tell him up front so he could back out if he wanted to, but I didn’t want him to back out. If he didn’t want me anymore it would just kill me. For the first time since all the surgery had begun, I was faced with the truth. The awful knowledge that I was deformed, maimed, scarred, whatever you wanted to call it, and this gorgeous man might reject me because of it. For a woman who had always been very secure (smug, some said) in my sexuality and attractiveness, this was a devastating blow to my ego.
I solved the problem by pouring more wine and lighting another joint. If he was stoned enough, maybe he wouldn’t notice.
Then I suddenly blurted it out, as quickly as possible, just hitting the highlights. Whatever his answer would be, I wanted to know right now and get it over with. Jerry didn’t say a word until I was finished speaking then he slipped his hands up under my gown and unhooked my bra, letting it fall off my shoulders. He bent forward and gently kissed each puckered, cock-eyed nipple then raised his lips to mine. There was such an expression of sweetness and gentleness in his eyes, and when we made love he caressed me with passion, not afraid that he would hurt me, but with all the lust of healthy male animal. He whispered the most beautiful things; I was lovely, a sexy, a whole woman; and if he didn’t mention my fantastic tits then neither one of us noticed. (Thank you, Jerry, for making the most difficult moment in my life so easy.)
I was planning on having the implants put back in after I had healed sufficiently and there was no danger of infection. The six-month waiting period passed quickly and I was full of enthusiasm, rushing to the hospital to hear the good news of when I could be admitted.
I was to be admitted, all right, but not for the eagerly-awaited new boobs. I had developed more lumps in my breasts, dozens of them that drew the flesh down to my chest bone sticking it together in hardened lumps that looked and felt like old candle wax that had long-since melted.
I would have to have what the surgeon called a mini-mastectomy, a thorough cleansing to rid my chest area of all cysts, lumps and scar tissue before my body would tolerate the foreign objects, or implants.
I was devastated for a while then my optimism rose again and I even convinced myself that it was a good idea: I would finally be free of all the old tissue that seemed prone to fibrous growths and all the toughened skin, once and for all, and when I was ready to have the implants put in, there would be nothing for the lumps to grow on.
The hospital trip was easy and familiar to me. The morning of the surgery I awoke promptly at six in the morning, knowing that a nurse would soon be there to prep me for the operation. I rolled over without being told for the injection that was to calm me before being wheeled into the operating room and the granddaddy shot, sodium pentothal.
I woke up sometime that afternoon, groggy, nauseous, glanced down expecting to see two nice little mounds under the bandages.
I saw nothing. I was still as flat as a board. Flatter, it seemed, as the bandages were wrapped tight to my bony chest. Time for the doctors to make their rounds and I listened mutely as he gently explained that there was simply no way to remove all the lumps at one time. He couldn’t leave me under that long while he fished around for all of them. I would have to come back in six months for another cleansing mastectomy.
My life seemed to be divided into six month periods of agony.
I was dry-eyed, then he left and I remained that way when I was released five days later, I didn’t even cry when I got home. I sent my neighbor out for some vodka and proceeded to get righteously ripped. I stayed that way for the next month. If depression set in when I was alone, I’d pick up the phone and invite some new cutie over who was currently infatuated with me.
That’s when my drinking started getting out of hand. I found that as long as I was drunk and had some young lover in my arms, dazzling him with racy stories of my past glories, I wasn’t depressed. In this foggy
state of mind, I cast myself in the role of sexual guru.
Kids from ten to thirty, old friends, and older friends started dropping by my house almost daily, knowing that there would be a party of some sort going on. I would sit there, holding court, amusing everyone with my witty stories, expounding on life and strength, sex and love, pain and happiness, because who knew better than I what it was all about? When I had had enough of the group therapy, I would look around the room and simply pick the guy I wanted to stay after the others had left.
Now romantic encounters were a very simple matter; I did not have to go through the embarrassing, stammering explanation of my boob history. Everyone knew, as it was usually one of the main topics of conversation. Men were naturally curious about how a woman would have the strength to carry on her normal life after losing such an important part of herself. They related it directly to a man losing his testicles, and I could feel their genuine sympathy. Women were naturally frightened, wondering if it could happen to them.
There were those who simply did not mention it, but they would constantly remind me that they knew what I was going through by complimenting me on how well I was handling such ugly fate. Others were openly sympathetic, wanting to talk about it and even to see what my ravaged chest looked like. As I was still stoned much of the time, this macabre request didn’t upset me. I even rather liked the attention and the look of horror on their faces when they stared at my wasted chest.
I was still just flat. I mean, I hadn’t had the final injustice that would come later.
At this stage I was still able to wear a regular padded bra or a regular pair of department store falsies.
The six month wait over, I went back to the hospital for the next step in the exorcising of Nancy’s lumps. I did not look when the doctors changed the bandages. I had this very queer, fatalistic feeling and the most gross, sick jokes flitted through my mind about my deformity. Making fun of myself before anyone else could had become a way of life with me. My sense of humor had pulled me through some very difficult situations and I wasn’t about to give it up now. I had a feeling I was going to need it more than ever, so I lay in my sterile hospital cot and dreamed up funny gags about my operation.
I was driven home by one of my closest male friends, Lon Viser, and the moment I was inside the house I unbuttoned my robe, lifted off the wide bandages and looked. It was far worse than even my twisted sense of humor had imagined.
I was used to being flat for the past few years. Flat I could handle. I wasn’t too sure I could handle concave, however, and that’s exactly what I was. There were two deep, lopsided holes in my chest as if all the meat had been scooped out, scraping the bone itself and totally emptying the chest cavity. The skin was stretched super-tight across the hard ridges of bone and scar tissue. It was discolored, purple, red, traces of dark bruises, the swollen incisions crisscrossed with black thread, the knots bulky and stiff, scratching my arm whenever I tried to move it. The wide bone that runs down the middle of my chest protruded out, causing the flesh on either side to fall away, disappearing into the shrunken holes. It looked like a couple of muffin tins without the muffins.
‘My God,’ Lon cried, staring horrified ‘What the hell did they do to you? It looks like you were chopped with a hatchet!’
Not a terribly discreet way of putting it, but I had to admit it was shocking. I forced a laugh and retorted ‘It’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, I reckon!’
And that was the way I felt. I just figured, Oh well, I’m used to it by now. I know I’m not going to die, I know that I have super friends and a darling daughter who loves me very much. I have all the support any person could ask for. I was luckier than most so-called whole people in my relationships with others, so I figured there was nothing to worry about.
Being concave opened up a whole new area of witticisms I could toss off at parties, ‘Are you sure the Bionic Woman started this way?’ I found that I not only could handle ‘flat’ I could handle ‘concave’ as well.
As I began healing, however, I found that concave wasn’t going to be that easy. First, there was the matter of bras. I couldn’t wear falsies anymore because the large holes spread up toward my throat and the falsies stopped about two inches short of the cavity. You could look at me from the side and see daylight through my bra.
I found a place in downtown Los Angeles that sold prosthesis and I made an appointment for a fitting, I had pretty much convinced myself that I was destined to remain deformed for the rest of my life so why not go all the way and get the damn phony tits to go along with my phony sense of humor?
I was now thirty-six years old and much of my shining optimism had given way to nonchalant acceptance. I hated the damn prosthesis from the first moment I put them on. They felt like they weighted twenty pounds each and the dense foam-rubber material irritated my still-fresh incisions. They were very expensive and were not sold as a pair. Each one cost seventy-five bucks, but I felt a bit consoled by the fact that there were also some there with a price tag of over a hundred-and-fifty dollars each. I was getting a bargain! The special bra that they fit into cost twenty-five bucks, and I had to have at least two. Two was all I could afford as my income was in sad, the sad shape.
Once fitted out with the prosthesis something happened to my head. The super-strong lady who could handle anything and make light of it was suddenly filled with such self-pity, I was shocked. I found myself bursting into tears at the slightest provocation. Melancholy would sweep over me with such force that I felt like I was shrouded in dark clouds and would never see the sun again. I cried all the time and I didn’t want to see anyone.
I moved to Lake View Terrace, far away from my old, familiar neighborhood where everybody knew me. I much preferred being alone with my booze and grass and the dull, droning, reliable boredom of television. I managed somehow to get some work done, just enough to feed myself and Staci, using her child support to make ends meet. My world was foggy and just a little off balance, and I liked it that way.
I became such a recluse that when friends called to ask me out they would begin with, ‘I know you never leave your house, but…’ I was amused by this and dubbed myself a hermit and fed the rumor with new jokes about my aloneness. But every so often, my natural optimism would arise and I would throw a party and get in on like I used to.
The self-pity I had been feeding for the past few months changed into a sort of embarrassment. When someone would tell me how strong I was and how well I was coping, I would feel guilty and ashamed because I knew that it just wasn’t true. I wasn’t coping with anything. I was escaping. I wasn’t a cute, eccentric recluse. I was a coward. I wasn’t even pretty anymore; I was bloated, puffy, and always suffering from a hangover. I wasn’t having beautiful love affairs; I was having drunken, stoned orgies that I couldn’t even remember clearly the next day because I had reached the point where I was blacking out a lot.
Again, I felt self-pity. Not because I had lost my breasts. Because I had lost my self-respect and pride. Self-pity turned swiftly to self-disgust. Now I stayed behind locked doors for another reason. The person I had become made me sick with shame. The sort of people I hung around with, I wouldn’t have looked at twice a few years before. My writing career that I had been so proud of, now consisted of quickie little sex books that paid just enough to get me through another month.
I’d always been a big drinker. But now I had to face the ugly fact: I was an alcoholic.
drunk in hollywood
In Hollywood, the players didn’t want to die—they just wanted to get high. High enough to get through the day and ease the boredom of the evening ahead. The drudgery of work day life in Hollywood is boring, and it’s intolerable to most artists after a while without some release from the tension. In the olden days, it used to be that many actors drank and often lurched through long shooting sessions, sometimes at the end of the day literally staggering from the effects of booze. The lucky ones became accustomed to working smashed (
Holden, Bogart, Tracy, Clift) and it seldom showed on camera, but the lesser tipplers usually began to show the signs of the grog after just a few belts and very often had to be sent home early a great expense in shooting time.
The very first time I ever saw anyone drink alcohol before noon, I was a teenager and having breakfast with then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower. I was there on the arm of Henaghan, of course. It was barely seven o’clock in the morning and the Commander-in-Chief had a little bit of food with his vodka. I had been shocked then but as the years went by, I became quite accustomed to seeing my friends and lovers drink their breakfast. I never dreamed that the same fate awaited me as well.
The statistics are staggering on the number of alcoholics in the United States and they are not all drinking alone. They have a booze buddy stashed somewhere, an alcoholic just like them, who feels, somehow, that if they share their addiction with a loved one, then it’s all right. I shared the addiction of alcohol and, in some cases, chemical dependency with a glittering array of world-famous celebrities. I was young, impressible, in awe of their fame and talent, trying to emulate them and be just like them.
When I was friends with Judy Garland and she used to lock herself in my guest room for days at a time, ringing for the maid only when she wanted another bottle of gin, I had thought it was hilarious. What a whacky, fun-loving broad, that Judy, I remember thinking. In those days, the late sixties, people were still not aware of the dangers of alcoholism.
During my affair with Paul Newman, he never once showed up at my house without at least a fifth of scotch and a twelve pack of beer. Most often, he had already mixed a drink so he could sip it while driving to my place.
