Cease to Blush

by Billie Livingston

  To top it off, Katie came over today. I was sitting at the table reading this thing about Marilyn and feeling crummy and in the back door comes Fatass. Who barely lives here anymore, thank god, but she still acts like she owns the joint. She waltzed in and headed straight for the fridge, poured herself some Kool-Aid and sat down at the table. She saw me reading about Marilyn and she says, “Looking at your hair-sake?” I just turned the page. THEN she says, “It’s a funny thing, you chicks who go out of your way to look like sexpots and strippers and all that, you know, and then when it comes down to it, you can’t get it on. I mean, it’s like a psychosis when you think about it.” I am not kidding. She said that! She looked stoned—on weed not booze. Lately, if she comes in and she’s high like that I can just stare at her, pick a point on her forehead and stare at it the way Johnny does when he wants to scare guys and she gets all freaked and leaves. I sat back and got to work on her. I had one of these yummy pastries that Dinah bought when she cashed her welfare check yesterday—Raspberry Cream-cheese Hamfists—they are to DIE for. Anyway, this was the last one and Katie gets the munchies really bad when she smokes, so I took a bite and sighed like I was having a climax or something. Then all of a sudden, I noticed her eyes. You know how usually your pupils get big with weed, well, hers were like pinpricks. And then she says all syrupy, “It’s okay. Kevin told me.”

  “What?”

  She gets this poor-you look on her ugly squash and she says, “I know that you don’t ball with Kevin. And that your mother didn’t want you. It’s classic really. A lot of girls, when their fathers do things to them as kids, they grow up like you, bleach blonde, very sexualized, you know, like Simone de Beauvoir says, ‘Shut up in a boudoir, her wings are clipped and it is found deplorable that she cannot fly,’” I kid you NOT. She actually got all teary-eyed for me, like I was pathetic! I didn’t know who I was going to kill first. Kevin was up in our room practising on Ernie’s guitar. I wanted to go kick his teeth in. I said, “Who said I don’t do it with—”

  She cut me off. “It’s okay. I SEE you. People think it’s bourgeois uptightness with girls like you, but I understand. You are sexualized externally but not intellectually.” I said, “Stop SAYING that! Girls like me! Girls like YOU. What’s your problem?”

  I couldn’t take it anymore and I ran upstairs and threw open the bedroom door. Kevin practically jumped out of his skin. I said, “Your ex-lunatic is downstairs saying that my father did something to me when I was a kid and that’s why my hair’s blonde and we don’t do it!”

  Kevin put up his hands. “Whoa, I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “Did you tell her about my mother? That was PERSONAL! That was between me and my OLD MAN. Not my OLD MAN’S ex.” He gets all wiggly and nervous and he says, “I might have told her you didn’t get along with your madre, but that’s it. She’s yanking your chain.”

  Whenever she sets foot in this house, there’s some kind of crap for me to deal with. I said, “I want her out. For good.” He kept telling me to chill and calm down and come let him hold me. I said, “Goddamn Christ, Kevin! Either she goes or I do.” I meant it. He just gawked and so I said, “Fine. I go then.” I started dragging my suitcase out of the closet. He grabbed me and said, “Whoa … What’s all the shootin’ about? Come’ere.” And he hugged me and told me to stay there and he’d go talk to her.

  I snuck halfway down the steps. First I heard him say, “What’s goin’ on, Katydid?” I hate it when he calls her that. And she said, “Ke-e-ev. I think I might’ve upset your old lady.” Her voice went quiet and I couldn’t hear a damn thing. A few minutes went by and then suddenly Kevin yelled, “What’re y’doin’ that shit for?” And Fatass said, “Quit wiggin’. It IS beatitude, man. It opens you.” Kevin said, “This guy is bad news” and she said, “You’re just jealous, daddy. Go play with your girl; I’m gettin’ outta here before you stomp my buzz so bad I gotta throw a funeral.”

  I’d like to throw a damn funeral. A minute later Kevin was at the foot of the stairs saying to me, “She’s fried, man. Scarecrow’s been doing H with her. She’s been snorting for a while now. Today’s the first time she mainlined.” I didn’t even know you COULD snort heroine. “She’s an idiot,” I said, but Kevin got all sympathetic and said she was just experimenting. So I said, “She’s a heroin addict, all the more reason you should get her out.” He said, “I don’t think abandoning your friends is the right thing to do when they’re in trouble.” So I said, “Did you tell her we don’t get it on?” He said, “Does that sound like something I’d say?”

  So now we’re supposed to act like a family and look after Junk-head Katie. Kevin thinks we should INSIST she comes home for dinner every night. How grand. Fuck fuck fuck! Maybe she’ll OD and solve all my problems. Ew. That was mean. I better go. I don’t have much else to say. I wrote another poem last night. I’ll spare you though. Write me back. You never write. And I hate calling collect.

  I miss you.

  Love, Celia

  xoxo

  June 2, 1962

  Dear Annie-Fanny,

  Sorry I haven’t been writing much lately but I’ve been at the Follies practically every night. I started going so I wouldn’t have to be home so much with Fatass. Although a lot of the time Kevin goes over to Conner’s place. He’s trying to force-feed Katie a truer form of crystallized beatitude, he says. I don’t even care anymore. I think I told you about the Follies—those are the poetry nights and they also have music and singing and short comedy sketches. Lots of sarcastic ones that make fun of politics and squares and television. Those are my favorite parts. I’m turning into little Miss Popular because I know all kinds of inside stories. Like, for instance, I told some of the guys that I heard the reason J. Edgar Hoover left Meyer Lansky alone is because Lansky has pictures of Hoover in a dress! It’s probably not true but it’s hilarious, and they did this sketch called “Tea Party at Hoover’s.” It brought the house down. They even did one of Hoover dressed as Marilyn and he sang “Happy Birthday, Mister President.” It was a scream.

  Mostly it’s the jazz boys I’ve been hanging with, a trio that backs the poets. They heard me sing once and now they keep hounding me to sing with them every night. One night I gave in and did “Love Me or Leave Me” just like that colored singer at the Jumpin’ Joy. I was so excited to be singing again. Kevin didn’t even show up. I’m not even sure if I dig him anymore. He said he didn’t come because Katie had a breakdown and they needed time to examine the self. Brother. Dinah and Ernie didn’t show either. They’ve been going off for lots of parties in Oakland. I guess they have new friends out there.

  I love singing again but in a way it makes me feel lonesome. I wonder if I’m pining for lights and action and New York and Las Vegas and I feel bad because then I feel shallow. Last night, I was lying in bed with Kevin and said, “I think I’m going to read my new poem tomorrow night. Will you come down?” He didn’t even answer me. I said, “Seems like you don’t hear a thing that comes out of my mouth anymore.” And he said, “Baby, I wish you’d think about someone other than yourself. You haven’t once asked how Katie is. You’re like this bottomless … sponge for attention and fuck if I’m not trying to keep someone from dying in the midst of it.”

  Then he tried to get it on with me. After THAT. I told him to go slam the window on it.

  When I told the guys in the band about wishing I could be a poet as good as the others, the sax player, Gordy, said, “But you ARE poetry, Celia.” I could have kissed him. I’m starting to think I dig Gordy more than Kevin. The embarrassing part is that my poem is for Kevin. He now says he’ll come. He’ll probably end up bringing Katie. I can sing in front of a loungeful of people in Lake Tahoe or Las Vegas but Katie comes around and I feel like the original loser.

  I guess I’ll just mail this. You say you love my letters but I feel like a boring whiny old drip.

  Love, Celia

  xxoo

  PS I have a confession to make. I DID kis
s Gordy. Does that count as cheating?

  June 3, well, technically 4, 1962

  Dear Annie,

  I’m in JAIL for chrissake! They let me have some paper, and Linda, another lady who’s in here, gave me a pen. She’s a lady of the evening. We’re in a holding cell together. Hold on.

  I just asked Linda and she said she prefers to be called a working girl. Lady of the evening’s too bourgeois. Linda says hi. She said she’s heard of you, Annie! You’re my famous best friend! She said she saw you in Los Angeles once but she can’t remember what nightclub. I wonder if they’ll mail this for me. Linda’s a riot, she keeps calling the cops or guards or whatever they are “lousy screws.” I’m glad she’s here. I guess you’re wondering how I got my skinny ass in here. (Linda keeps saying I have a skinny ass. I don’t know how I feel about that.) (Actually there’s another girl in here from Harry’s too. She’s in for possession of marijuana but she’s passed out on the floor right now.) Well, I read my poem tonight just like I said I would.

  I went down to Harry’s early. I dressed all in black. And Lorne, the gut-scraper (a violinist—he calls himself the gut-scraper), tugged at my beret and said, “The kitten-hipster cometh. She’s icy-cool now, daddy.” And then I got embarrassed and said, “I knew you guys were going to bug me. My dress is in my bag for later if I sing.” Lorne tried to smooth my feathers. “No, it’s great, it’s like you’re goofin’ on us. It’s like a spoof.” I said, “Thanks loads,” and I took a cigarette out of one of their packs and they teased me about THAT too. Gordy grabbed it out of my mouth and said, “Uck! It’s like a nun giving head.” “For chrissake,” I said. “I smoke funny. I dress funny. I’m bourgeois, la-di-da.”

  Gordy said, “Oh, don’t get all bent. It’s cool how you do. You got one costume for your poetry and one for your singin’. You treat this dump like a real club and I mean that in the most monster way.” Gordy’s such a honey. He said he was talking with his uncle who blows around New York and played with Rosemary Clooney, and his uncle said Clooney’s such a grape hound, sometimes she can barely stand up when she’s on. Gord said he thought we should do a bit where I burlesque Clooney. He said, “You could wear that nice dress of yours, all sweet and square, but you’re stoned, see, and you talk to the audience and sing and you cuss out the band … It’d be crazy.” How would the audience even know who I was? I wondered. And Gordy said, “We’d announce you. And you’d do one of her big ones, ‘Come On-A My House’ or ‘Mambo Italiano’ and then you could dance too but you’d trip it up, see.”

  That Gordy. It turned me to mush that he thought up a sketch just for me.

  I was supposed to be third up with my poem but Kevin still hadn’t shown and I asked the fellas in the Castro the Friendly Ghost sketch if we could switch spots. They said yes and then it was an hour later and STILL no Kevin. I wanted to die. And Gordy felt sorry for me and that was TRULY humiliating. You know, when you dig a new guy and the old guy ditches you? Anyway, I’d had a couple glasses of wine so I just said, “Screw it!” and went to the mike. My poem is called “Rifling.” I had it all memorized (everybody does their stuff by heart). Just as I said the first line, guess who stumbles in the door with his arm around Katie. I got all tripped up and had to start over again. This is how my poem starts,

  Rifling

  Again, I am rifling through music, listening for you.

  Kevin and Katie hung at the back of the room. I was on the verge of bombsville so I FORCED myself to take the mike off the stand and turned to Gordy and the guys to help me get my courage again. You would’ve been proud of me. Then I turned around and sat on the stool and tossed my head back and I just DID it. The rest goes like this:

  Tracing your outline through each chorus,

  letting each note cascade over my head.

  The lyrics dripping down my throat.

  Only when the sun has crawled away does

  your heart unravel, loosening, floating and I am

  allowed to hunt you in you.

  Until daylight tracks its way home. Climbing

  through windows, seeping under doors, tightening,

  its raw light forcing me back to hide and listen.

  I KILLED, Annie, I really did. Everybody was snapping their fingers like crazy. Maybe they just felt sorry for me but it felt really good anyway. (Linda is reading over my shoulder right now. I wish you could meet Linda. She’s very nice.) Until it quieted down and I heard someone kind of snort like I was a real jerk or something. I looked over and guess who. Kevin was putting his hand over her mouth and laughing. I felt as if my face was on fire. I didn’t know where to look and sweet Gordy winked at me and put his arms out. I got a hug from him but I wanted to do a Houdini in the worst way. Except I promised the guys I’d sing. I decided to just go get a drink and try to think of the coolness of the good people and pretend there was no Kevin. But then he grabbed me, the creep. “Hey, babe! You did your little poem. You looked cute in that beret.”

  I said, “What was so irrepressibly funny to Katie?”

  “Ah nothing. It was a gas when you were doing those Vegas moves.” And he tossed his head, imitating me! VEGAS moves? Then that fuck-faced Fatass sidled over and SHE said, “Atta chick, Celia. You can take the girl out of the burlesque but you can’t take burlesque out of the girl.” They both laughed. And no I didn’t murder them. I said, “You two wouldn’t know burlesque if it bit you in the ass.” And then I stormed back to the stage and told Gordy I wanted us to do the Clooney bit NOW. I marched straight to the bar for a glass of grape and downed the whole glass as soon as it hit the counter! Kevin came up to me again and said, “You’re not hot, are you? She just never saw a poet go in for all that drama is all.”

  Can you believe!? I said to the bartender, “Hit me again, pally,” and then I reached for my bag of clothes and started thinking Rosemary Clooney into my voice. I sang a little in the bathroom to make sure I had it.

  Gordy introduced me. He said, “Cats and kittens, flap your ears cuz I’m about to introduce you to someone very special. Here now, the goddess of grape, the original bottle baby, stopping in to sing us a treat on her way to detox—Miss Rosemary Clooney.” I had on my ice-blue dress (still do) and I left the black beret on and I grabbed the mike and said, “Thank you, you beautiful San Franciscansans.” And then I turned around to Gordy and he looked so cute I said, “And you! You bump your gums too much, pally. I’m sober as a whistle, baby, straight as a, a, whaddycallit.” Gordy looked so happy and I looked into the crowd and lit into them. “All right, you crazy cats, you righteous … sons-a-bitches … we’re gonna shake it up in here. And if you’re very very good, I’m gonna letcha …” and I looked back at Gordy and said,

  “One-two-three-four—‘Botch-a-me, I’ll botcha you and ev’rything goes crazy!’”

  I was good, Annie! I don’t mean to sound conceited, but I really WAS! I was strutting around and flirting with the room and singing “‘Bah-bah, botch-a-me, bambino. Bah-bah-bo, bo, boca piccolino. When you kiss me and I’m a-kissa you. Tra la la la la la la la la loo!’”

  The crowd whooped and clapped and some of them were even singing along! I don’t know if I was just stoned on the sympathetic vibrations or the wine but I was FLYING! I imagined where Katie and Kevin were even though I couldn’t see them and I thought “Fuck you!” but I yelled, “Kiss-a me!” and tossed my beret. I kept hearing Katie somewhere in the back of my head: “You can’t take burlesque out of the girl.” And the next thing you know I slipped a shoulder strap down. The room went mental.

  And then I took the other strap down and I yelled, “Let ’em have it, boys” to the band. I was on FIRE and I plucked Gordy’s cigarette out of his mouth and took a drag and I blew the smoke at the audience. By the time I sang, “‘If-a you squeeze me and I’m a-squeeza you,’” I was shimmying out of the dress. I kicked it to the side and I was dancing and singing in my slip.

  You should’ve been there. I had my thumbs looped in my slip straps and I was stretching t
hem like suspenders while I sang. This shaggy poet-cat jumped up and jived with me! I just laughed, and shoved him back in his chair and he LOVED it. They all loved it! When the song ended they were pounding the tables and screaming for more. I said, “You want more, you little devils? Whatchu wanna? Uh? You wanna, you wann ‘Come On-A My House’?” The band launched right into it! What I didn’t know was there was some little weasel reporter in the back of the room. I don’t know what the hell he was doing there. So I kept belting it out—“‘Come on-a my house, my house,’” and I slipped right out of my slip! There I was in my bra and my lacy French-cut drawers and my slingbacks (the ones you talked me into getting in L.A.). Oh my lord, Annie. I feel like a skinny little nothing most of the time but suddenly I was the curviest road this side of the Rockies and I thought, Fuck you, Fatass, and the next thing you know, one bra strap was down and then the other. I did it like YOU. I turned my back to the crowd and I plucked the straps and stretched them sideways, and slid the bra down to my waist. Then I crossed my arms and faced them.

  That fink reporter must’ve made a call. When I got to “Come on-a my house, my house, I’m gonna give you everything,” I threw my arms in the air right as the BULLS walked in! They blew the whistle and the band stopped. I stopped. Everything stopped. Then every cat and chick in the joint suddenly remembered their stash and tried to get rid of it. They jammed into the bathrooms and ducked out the back and there I was with my arms crossed, trying to grab my slip. Next thing I knew, a cop yanked me by the arm and said, “Zat ’sposed to be poetry, miss?” and told me I was under arrest for indecent exposure and contributing to the delinquency of minors. Contributing? He doesn’t know the half of it. One of the girls screamed, “Leave her alone, pig!,” which was very sweet of her. Gordy and the band were slammed to the wall and getting their pockets and pant legs frisked. Harry was cuffed for selling booze to minors and everybody and their dog was getting ID’d. I was worried they were hurting Gordy. And they were really manhandling me too. I was still NAKED except for my undies and this pig was dragging me to the door and I said, “Would you let me cover up at least?” (Linda’s getting mad reading this over my shoulder.) The cop says to me, “You shoulda thought of that before you decided to expose yourself,” and slammed my wrists together and snapped his handcuffs on. “I betcher folks’ll be real proud.” Then the fink reporter who I’m sure started this whole mess ran up with his pad and pen and started BOMBARDING me with questions. “What drove you to take off your clothes, Celia? Are you a prostitute?” What a jerk. There I am in my slingbacks and drawers and the cop is pulling me out on the STREET!! Talk about indecent exposure. And that rat face reporter was running alongside me and he said, “Celia, how long have you been singing? Can you impersonate other singers or do you just naturally sound like Clooney?” Which was kind of nice. Outside, a couple of the poets were spread over the bull carts and everybody was yelling, “Fucking pigs!” I even heard people singing “We Shall Overcome”! Man, it was cold though. How come California gets so cold at night? Even in summer. If this happened in New York, at least it’d be warm.