She said, “Oh, did that bring up something for you?”
And I said, “No, it didn’t, absolutely.”
Because I know the difference between pretend war and real war.
But it was interesting for me to observe how my friends perceived what war is.
The next day at school, these friends of mine talked about the awesome weekend of paintball we’d had. But they never said how I’d won all the games. And I said nothing at all.
They never invited me back to play paintball with them. And I didn’t ask to be invited back.
I so wanted to talk to them about the war while we were playing the game. I wanted to explain certain things, but I felt that if they knew about my background, they would no longer allow me to be a child. They would see me as an adult, and I was worried that they would fear me.
My silence allowed me to experience things, to participate in my childhood, to do things I hadn’t been able to do as a child.
It was only years later that they learned why I had won the game.
But I wish I had been able to tell them early on, because I wanted them to understand how lucky they were to have a mother, a father, grandparents, siblings. People who annoyed them by caring about them so much and calling them all the time to make sure they were okay.
I wanted to tell them that they were so lucky to have this naïve innocence about the world. I wanted them to understand that it was extremely lucky for them to only play pretend war and never have to do the real thing. And that their naïve innocence about the world was something for which I no longer had the capacity.
ISHMAEL BEAH, born in Sierra Leone, West Africa, is the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier and Radiance of Tomorrow: A Novel.
This story was told on May 6, 2016, at the BAM Harvey Theater in Brooklyn. The theme of the evening was Don’t Look Back: Stories from the Teenage Years, produced in conjunction with Radio Diaries WNYC’s RadioLoveFest. Director: Jenifer Hixson.
I’m kneeling on the floor of a cheap roadside motel, somewhere in western Tennessee. Next to me, leading me in prayer, is a large, middle-aged man with cerebral palsy named Ronnie Simonsen.
He says, “Bless my mother, my brothers and sisters, and my pastor back home in New Hampshire. God, bless Bob Hope and Cher…and all three of Charlie’s Angels. Especially Jaclyn Smith.”
And then Ronnie says, “And, Lord, please help us get to California quickly, where I know I’m going to meet my spiritual brother, Mr. Chad Everett, the star of CBS’s drama Medical Center.”
And here I interrupt Ron. I say, “Ron, you know, we might not meet Chad Everett. We’re not sure that’s going to happen.”
He says, “Yeah, yeah, I know, but keep praying. Keep praying.”
I first met Ronnie about eight years before that. I was working at a summer camp for people with disabilities. I was a counselor there, and I had brought along a video camera, because I was also interested in making films.
Ronnie was drawn to that camera. He came right up to me and wanted to talk about movies and TV. He had cerebral palsy in his legs, but he also had an interesting combination of autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder. It manifested itself in this extreme fascination with television and movie stars from the 1970s, which is when he was a kid.
He spent most of his childhood in hospitals, and he became particularly obsessed with the people who would play doctors on television. He took comfort in their calm voices.
And there was one man, above all, who he held as sort of like a god, and that was Chad Everett, who played Dr. Joe Gannon on CBS’s Medical Center.
I really liked Ron. He was fun. He was great on camera—he loved to be on camera. We made lots of videos together at the camp.
Some of the most popular videos were these newscasts we would do. (We made our own news show.) Ronnie was fantastic at that, especially when we could go downtown, and he would interview people on the street. He was this large man, and when he would talk to people, he couldn’t stand up for too long, so he would lean on them for balance while he was asking them questions. And he would get them to do skits. He had this real ability to bring people out.
These films that we made, they had kind of developed this underground popularity. Eventually I was able to get some funding to make a film outside the camp. The idea was, we were going to drive across country with five people with disabilities from this summer camp.
We were going to go from their houses in New England all the way to Los Angeles, California. Everyone on the trip had their own hopes and dreams for going to California, a place they’d never been. But Ronnie’s dreams overshadowed everybody else’s.
To him, California was the Holy Land. It was the place where he was destined to meet Mr. Chad Everett, his spiritual brother. It was his biggest dream.
(He told everybody, “It’s my biggest dream.”)
He took this biggest-dream mission very, very seriously. It kind of stressed him out. He had this skin condition called psoriasis, and he would get these rashes on his arms when he got stressed out, and he would itch at them.
And I felt like this whole situation was mainly my responsibility as the director of this ridiculous film, and I decided I would be Ronnie’s roommate across the country.
So every night, in these hotels, I would help Ronnie apply the medication to his rashes, and then we would say a prayer. And that’s how I ended up in this hotel room in Tennessee, praying with Ronnie Simonsen.
As Ronnie prays, I say my own little prayer. I’m not a very religious person. I had never really prayed much before. I’m twenty-nine years old, but this is the first time I pray in earnest. I say, Please, help us get to California safely. And please, when we get there, give me some guidance. Help me to solve this mess that we’re going to have when we get to California.
Because I have this secret that I haven’t shared with Ron. I probably should have shared it with him, but I just can’t.
I’d gotten in touch with Chad Everett’s agent before we went on the trip, and I’d asked if we could set up a meeting between these two people. I knew it was going to be a fantastic moment on film.
But his agent made me understand that Chad Everett was a very busy man, and that he wasn’t going to have time for something like that. In fact, he didn’t really wanna encourage his obsessive fans.
I probably should have told Ronnie that, but he didn’t take disappointment very well.
I’d helped Ronnie write letters to numerous celebrities over the years, and we had written to Chad Everett. One year Ronnie had called me up. He was so excited, ’cause he got this head shot in the mail. It was a smiling picture of Chad Everett. Ronnie memorized every word that Chad Everett had signed on this picture.
It said, “To Ron, life’s not meant to be lived in reruns. Watch me in the new show Love Boat! Walk in the light, Chad Everett.”
And so all the way across the country, as we were driving from across Texas to the Grand Canyon, Ronnie would go over the contents of that letter with me.
He would say, “What does that mean, ‘life’s not meant to be lived in reruns?’ And what does that mean, to ‘walk in the light’? I’m walking in the light, right?”
And I would say, “Yeah, Ron, you’re walking in the light.”
When we reach California, it’s a wonderful moment. We all go swimming in the ocean, and everybody’s really happy. Except for, of course, Ron. Because he’s on a higher mission.
Ron and I come to this agreement: everyone else involved with the film is going to fly home, and he and I are going to spend a few more days in Los Angeles.
So everyone goes home, and Ronnie and I end up in this hotel room together, putting on his psoriasis medicine. And I have no plan at all.
Along the trip, someone, who I believe was very well-meaning, had said to Ronnie, “Hey, Ronnie. You shouldn’t be so self-conscious.”
And Ronnie, for about the 150th time that trip, asked me, “What does t
hat mean, self-conscious?”
I tell him, “Well, Ronnie, to be self-conscious, that means to worry about yourself too much.”
Then he says, also for the 150th time, “I’m not being self-conscious right now, am I?”
And I’m kind of fed up at this point. I just wanna say, “You know, by definition, you asking me that question? That means you’re being self-conscious, right?”
But I don’t say that. I know better.
“No, Ronnie. You’re not being self-conscious at all.”
On our last day in California, we hatch a plan out of desperation. We go to this town near Malibu, out in the hills, where Ronnie had heard that Chad Everett lived. We go to a shopping center, and Ronnie gets really excited because he interviews this kid who apparently had bagged Chad Everett’s groceries. Then someone else tells us that they know the street that Chad Everett lives on.
Ronnie says, “I just wanna see what his house looks like.”
So we go up, and it’s a gated community. And then I find myself sneaking past as the guard’s not looking, and we get to what we think is his house.
Ronnie says, “I just wanna take a picture in front of his house.”
So Ronnie gets out, and it’s not until we’re hiding in the bushes, and we’ve been there for over an hour, that I realize that this is a terrible idea. Why are we here? What did I think was going to happen? I had this crazy idea that Chad Everett would see Ronnie, and he would understand that this was someone that he should get to know.
But of course if Chad Everett walked out of that house, Ronnie was going to rush towards him, and someone was going to call the police. It was going to be a disaster.
So it was a certain sense of relief that I felt when a security guard came up and told us that we had to leave.
So we did leave. And that film ends with Ronnie kissing Chad Everett’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It’s a good ending, but of course it’s not the ending that Ronnie and I wanted for that film.
As we took the film to film festivals around the country, Ronnie became a little bit of a celebrity, and it was funny, because that didn’t mean anything to him, to be a celebrity himself. He would ask anybody in the audience at the festivals if maybe they knew a way to get this film into Chad Everett’s hands. That’s all he cared about.
Throughout that year Ronnie would call me up and he’d say, “You need to send a tape to this person, because they might know Chad Everett’s daughter.”
I was starting to get kind of annoyed, to be honest. I was like, Man, we went all the way to California. Why can’t he just drop this whole thing?
And I was kind of annoyed with myself, too, because I had become tethered to this dream of Ronnie’s.
On top of that, I had a version of the dream that was a nightmare for me, which was this: that Ronnie would somehow meet Chad Everett…and I wouldn’t be there.
That kept me up at night. If Ronnie were to meet him, and I wasn’t there, I didn’t think I could live with myself. I honestly felt that way. I was in this state.
Then one day I got a phone call. There was a deep voice on the other end of the line, and it said, “Hello, this is Chad Everett.”
I said, “No it’s not.”
And he said, “Yes it is.”
And it was Chad Everett. He had seen our film, and he liked it. He liked it a lot. In fact, he agreed that if we could get Ronnie to California, he would meet Ronnie. And he would do an interview with him.
I hung up the phone, and I drove three hours to Ronnie’s house, and I said, “Ronnie, Chad Everett saw the film, and he wants to meet you.”
And Ronnie said, “Oh, boy!!!”
For two weeks straight, Ronnie couldn’t sleep. All he could do was call me up and talk about exactly what was going to happen.
Eventually we got on a plane and we flew out to California. The whole way, Ronnie’s clapping his hands and rocking back and forth. Everyone he meets, he tells them that he’s going to achieve his biggest dream—he’s going to meet Chad Everett.
I said, “We’re going to do this on a beach, because it’s wide open. It’s a big, wide-open space, and there’s lots of room.”
I think this is a good plan until we get to the beach, and I’m walking with Ron on the sand. At this point Ronnie’s legs are really kind of giving out, and he can hardly walk on solid ground without assistance.
And he can’t even stand up on the sand.
I realized it was a bad idea, to do this on a beach. We sit him down on a beach chair, and I’m trying to think, Where else could we do this?—when this convertible pulls up, and the license plate says SIR CHAD.
Down at the other end of the beach, this handsome older man steps out, and he starts walking across the beach. He’s a hundred yards away, and Ronnie spots him.
He yells, “Is that Chad Everett?”
And Chad Everett yells back, “Yes it is! You betcha!”
And Ronnie hoists himself up out of this chair, and he starts running across the beach. He’s running. I’ve never seen Ronnie run ever in my life. And he is running across the beach. He’s kicking up the sand.
He’s going, “Chad Everett! Chad Everett!”
I think he’s going to fall and wipe out, and Chad Everett’s going, “Slow down! Slow down! Slow down!”
Ronnie’s running towards him, and he looks like a little boy. He does. He looks like a little boy.
And when he reaches Chad Everett, he throws his arms around him, and he says, “Chad, I’m so happy to see you!”
They have a wonderful time. They do skits together on the beach. Ronnie interviews him. And they say a prayer. It’s a wonderful meeting.
We take the red-eye home that night, and Ronnie’s exhausted. He’s a man who hasn’t slept for weeks.
He says to me, “Well, Arthur, we did it.” And then he finally goes to sleep.
After that trip I didn’t hear from Ronnie for quite a while, and that was strange, because he would call me so often. When I finally did hear from Ron, he had some bad news. He had been diagnosed with leukemia, and his mother told me privately that he was given six months to live.
Ron said to me, “Look, I know that Chad Everett’s a really busy man. But do you think you could tell him about this?”
I said, “Sure, Ron. I can let him know.”
So I did. I told Chad Everett.
And an amazing thing happened then.
Chad Everett started calling Ronnie every Sunday, and they would talk. Without fail, he called Ronnie every Sunday.
And Ronnie outlived that diagnosis by months and months. He lived for over two years. In fact, he went back to California and saw Chad and had a party to celebrate.
Eventually Ronnie did die of that disease. And after his death, I thought a lot about the lessons I had learned from Ronnie Simonsen. About the importance of having a biggest dream, no matter how silly it is.
But I often wondered, Did I spend too much time chasing this other person’s dream, that wasn’t really my dream?
Then, recently, we were putting together a compilation of tapes that we’d made with Ronnie.
The editor called me up and said, “Hey, I’ve got this audio track I want you to hear. I think you’ll find it funny.” So he plays it for me, and it’s this person breathing really hard.
It sounds like it’s someone who’s going up the stairs or really out of breath. And then I hear my voice going, “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”
It’s the audio track from my camera as I’m filming Ronnie running towards Chad Everett. I’d never heard that. I’d always heard Ronnie’s mic, not my mic. And I’m saying, “Oh, my God, oh, my God.” And as they hug, I swear, you can almost hear my heart beating out of my chest. I’m so excited by this meeting.
If you had asked me ten years ago, “What’s your biggest dream?” It would not have been “to meet the star of CBS’s Medical Center.” But through Ron that had become my dream. And I’ve always wanted to thank Ron for s
haring that with me and for making it come true.
ARTHUR BRADFORD is an O. Henry Award–winning writer and Emmy-nominated filmmaker. He is the author of Dogwalker (Knopf, 2002) and Turtleface (FSG, 2015). He is the creator and director of the acclaimed How’s Your News? documentary series, which features a team of news reporters with mental disabilities who conduct spontaneous interviews with strangers and celebrities. In 2009 Bradford developed the concept into a series for MTV, which aired for one season. Bradford also directed the Emmy-nominated documentary Six Days to Air about the making of South Park, and he is currently shooting a feature documentary about Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of South Park and The Book of Mormon. A Moth GrandSLAM winner, Bradford lives in Portland, Oregon, and works with incarcerated youth.
This story was told on July 10, 2013, at The Players in New York City. The theme of the evening was Pulling Focus: Stories of Insight. Director: Jenifer Hixson.
Nina’s mother came up to me, and she said, “Chaplain, I think I have a problem. It’s Nina. She says she wants to go and see Andy, her cousin.”
Well, I looked over at Nina, who was hanging by her knees from the swing set in her backyard, little pigtails brushing the ground.
I said, “How old is Nina, again?”
And her mom said, “Five.”
“Wow.”
I should probably mention that cousin Andy was dead. Which isn’t the unusual part.
I’ve been chaplain to the Maine Warden Service for about thirteen years now. And in Maine game wardens enforce fish and wildlife law. But they also respond to a whole variety of outdoor calamities: snowmobile accidents, freshwater drownings, all-terrain-vehicle accidents. The occasional alfresco homicide or suicide. And when they think the outcome is likely to be fatal, they ask their chaplain to go along.
I also teach baby game wardens in the academy about how to support bereaved people, which they’re often called upon to do. The example I usually use for them is personal.
My first husband, Drew, was a state trooper. And he was killed in the line of duty in 1996. As soon as I was told that he was dead—he died instantly when his cruiser was T-boned by a truck—as soon as I was told that fact, I knew I wanted to go see him and take care of him.
The Moth Presents All These Wonders Page 3
