Our pet store man, who had no bottom teeth, said we would need a tub for the turtle. We would need bags of gravel for the bottom of the tub. He sold us two large bags of colored pebbles. He said the turtle might appreciate a couple of the plastic palm trees he sold as turtle tank decorations. Most importantly, we would need snails.
“Snails?” Mom asked.
“Yes, ma’am. They eat the feces and keep the tub clean. You don’t want to be cleaning that tub yourself.”
Mom made a face and looked at me. She bought two snails. We headed home with the tub and the gravel, two palm trees, and two snails. The ride was joyous as we tried out different names for the turtle. They ranged from the dignified like “Sam” or “Tom” to the ironic like “Speedy” or “Lightning.”
We got out of the car brimming with enthusiasm. I ran onto the patio. The turtle was gone. Never to be seen again. Mom and I unpacked the tub and the gravel and palm trees. We filled it with water. And that’s how we ended up with two pet snails.
The Dangerous Animals Club had officially slipped into the realm of memory. Fade-out.
Fade-in, some forty years later. I was married, just as Eye the Monster had urged me to do. Annie and I, and my two boys, Robert, age twelve, and William, age seven, took off on an adventure one summer to live in a three-hundred-year-old farmhouse in the little Alps of southern France. It was late afternoon in this wild place of mountains and forests and dirt roads and ruins that date back to Roman times. I was sitting at our kitchen table drinking a glass of wine when my seven-year-old son, William, came running into the house. “Daddy, Daddy, come quick. I just saw a giant lizard on the hillside. We could catch him and take him back to America if you come quick.”
I was up in a flash. I found myself laughing in a most peculiar way as I ran out the door, grabbing an umbrella to use as a tool of capture or, if necessary, a weapon. I ran with William into the mountains at dusk, honored to be invited into his secret world and proud that yet another member of the Dangerous Animals Club had stepped forward to do the job so few are willing to do.
I WAS NOT up for much when we arrived in France. I fell into a near-terminal case of jet lag. I would sleep on the couch. I would sleep on the floor. I slept while Ann explained to me how I had to force myself to stay awake to stop the sleep cycle. I had become Snow White in the story of my life, but even the kiss from my beloved couldn’t help.
One afternoon while I was sleeping on the kitchen table, William came running inside to tell me to come quick—he had learned to talk to the bats.
I muttered, “Talk to the bats?”
William said, “Sure, Dad, they’re everywhere. Now that I know their language, I can make them our friends.”
Parents know that occasionally children will utter a sentence in which every word can make you question the fabric of sanity. But I believe that it is in these moments when you get a peek at the secret world your children have had all along. I had no idea we had bats at our house in the country, let alone that they “were everywhere.” I had no idea William was working on breaking the language barrier. I had no idea what being friends with a bat would entail, and if it was a road I was willing to travel.
I got up and followed William outside the farmhouse. He ran about ten yards away from me and started squeaking. It was loud. It could be heard for miles. If there were any glass nearby, it would have broken. Overhead I saw a dark circle forming. I couldn’t believe it. It was clear that my son was doing something that engaged the bats on a critter level. He continued the call. Occasionally a bat swooped out of the sky and landed on his shoulder. My reaction was a strange mix of pride and nausea. He was a genius. Kind of like the young Mozart, except instead of playing the piano blindfolded, he was a vermin magnet.
Like any good father, I tried to calculate ways I could monetize this ability. The only options that came to mind involved the circus or the military. I called out, “William, this is great.” Ann came outside. I whispered to her, “Baby, can you believe this? Our son can talk to bats.”
Ann was not amused. She said, “Stephen, the bats could have rabies.” I said, “I know. I know. You’re right. You’re right. They probably all do. This should stop.”
I turned to William and congratulated him on his accomplishment and asked if there was a safe way to get the bats off of his head. William said, “I’ll just ask them to go away.” He started turning in circles and squeaking again. As if by magic, the bats began to disperse. I promised Ann I wouldn’t encourage William in his bat-talking experiments anymore.
But you can only keep that kind of light under a bushel for so long. One afternoon I was in a deep coma, when the bat signal awakened me once more. I dragged myself out of bed and saw William down the road calling the bats at our landlord’s home. My son Robert was displaying him to our neighbors and asking for contributions. Our eighty-year-old Iraqi landlord was impressed with William’s talent. Robert came alongside of me and whispered conspiratorially, “What a scam. It’s just a sound frequency. Not William.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But he’s the only one doing the frequency.”
Robert rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Who else would want to? He’s just weird.”
“I have to agree with you there, Robert. It’s a weird thing to want to do.”
Robert got serious. “Any way we can make some serious money off of this?”
I shook my head. “Already thought about it. I doubt it.”
“What about America’s Funniest Home Videos?” Robert asked.
I hadn’t thought of that. That was far more practical than sending William off to the circus. Robert added, “Only thing wrong is that he would probably have to get bitten for us to win.”
After the bat-calling session, our landlord suggested we go down the mountain a ways. A Pakistani chess master and his eleven-year-old son were living on a farm over the summer. They might enjoy the bat calling.
William was thriving with his newfound notoriety. He had even perfected the blush of false modesty.
A big factor in any fascination is proximity. If you’re close to the object of your passion, it can blossom. Fantasy can turn into romance. That was the case with William and the black bull snake. This snake was about four to five feet long and he lived on our mountain. We would find snake skins all around our house and pool. We had little doubt that our home was ground zero in the bull-snake world.
One day I was passed out in the living room when William ran inside and asked me, “Daddy, if I capture a bull snake, can we bring it home to America?” I mumbled, “Doubt it,” before I rolled over and continued to sleep it off. Robert came in and said, “Hey, Dad. The pool is filled with snakes.”
I roused myself and staggered out toward the pool area. There were several snakes in the water swimming. Several sunning on the bank. It didn’t look safe. It was starting to resemble something from an Indiana Jones movie. I called our landlord to come and take a look. He drove up about five minutes later. He looked in the pool. He looked up at the mountain. He checked the angle of the sun in the sky and then felt the temperature of the water. He nodded and said, “Yes. Yes. This is about right. They like to spend the summers in the pool. It gets so hot.”
“I understand. We like to spend the summers in the pool, too, which is why we rented your house. It would be nice to do it without the snakes. Is there someone we can call?”
Our landlord laughed and said, “Who would you call? There are hundreds of snakes in the mountains. They love it here. They come down and have sex in the pool. The big lizards come down here, too. You may find them mating here in the morning and evening. They won’t hurt you. They just want to have sex and eat the rats. The rats are everywhere.”
I gathered my thoughts. “So you are saying our backyard is the Playboy Mansion for the reptiles of Europe?”
“No. Just for the bull snakes. They are the only ones who go in the pool. I promise you there will never be a rat inside the house. After a while, you will get used to it
. I have come to find it amusing to watch them court. The dance of love. It is beautiful.”
I avoided getting misty-eyed and stayed on point. “Do they bite?” Our landlord looked at me like I was crazy. “Only if you get in the pool with them,” he said. I was feeling too sleepy to stand my ground on any sort of rent reduction. I was just able to ask, “Any other snakes around here? I read you have poisonous snakes, too. Vipers.”
Our landlord’s countenance grew serious. “Yes. The viper is very dangerous, but they are not around here. They are short, only about a foot or eighteen inches long. You can’t miss them. They are bright yellow with a black diamond pattern down their back. They have a triangular head.”
I puffed up with a certain amount of authority and said, “Yes, I know. Poisonous snakes have triangular heads. When I was a little boy, I was in the Dangerous Animals Club in Texas. We tried to catch poisonous snakes alive and bring them back to our clubhouse.” Our landlord looked at me and smiled. “That is really crazy,” he said. “But if what you say is true, I would think a few bull snakes in the pool shouldn’t bother you.” He headed off to his car. “I think your son has a gift with those bats. He really impressed our neighbor from Pakistan.”
A FEW DAYS later we headed out on a day trip to visit something else you don’t see every day. The Pont du Gard. This is the ruin of a Roman aqueduct built in the first century AD. Ancient graffiti covers the stones. Looking at all of the inscriptions you see that the power of humanity isn’t always found in great art. Over the centuries, lovers, soldiers, poets, and scoundrels have met here and left behind messages to the world: “Max and Emma—Love—1806” or “To God—1640” or “Freedom 1783.” You don’t need much more than that to understand the history of mankind.
We crossed the Gard River and started exploring the other side. Ann wanted to take in the beauty of it all. She sat down on the bank while Robert, William, and I set out to see what we could find. We got to a place where the river was narrow enough and we could throw rocks across to the other side. We started firing at will when William said casually from the log behind us, “Daddy, look. A viprish.”
“A viprish?”
“Yes, a cute, little, beautiful viprish.” I turned and looked back at the log where William was hunting for rocks. Coming out to check on the commotion was a short snake with a bright yellow body and a distinctive dark diamond pattern. I froze. “William, walk toward me now. Walk slowly and steadily, honey,” I whispered.
“No, Daddy, let’s catch him and take him back.”
For some unexplainable reason, it sounded like a good idea. “Wait. I know how to grab him. Behind the head!” I said.
Robert and William and I started chasing the terrified snake. At one point it crawled over my foot just out of my clutches. The viper disappeared in some tall grass on a low-lying hill. Robert quieted us down and said, “Let me take a look.” We waited in silence, afraid to breathe too loudly. Robert lifted himself to look over the crest of the hill. His face turned red. He tried to squelch his laugh as his eyes filled with tears. I said, “Robert, what is it? Did you see the snake?”
“No. Worse. Nudies. Lots of nudies.”
I lifted myself over the hill and he was right. Several heavyset nudists were sunbathing. Some had apparently never heard of sunblock. William ran up for his look and started to laugh hysterically. The nudies looked back at us in disgust. The three of us turned like madmen and ran back to Ann. We arrived breathless from the run and the laughter. She waited to hear what the commotion was all about. We began our stories. Her face changed as most women’s do when they listen to their men: from amusement to horror to incomprehensibility. We told her about the viper and our brush with death and the cluster of nudies. I lay down on the shore with the Gard River running beside me, and as I started to fall asleep, I smiled with the knowledge that the human being is still the most dangerous animal of all.
William in the wilderness on the trail of something awful.
2.
FAQ
MY IQ INCREASED dramatically in 1995. I’m not talking about my intelligence. That was cooked in 1968. I am talking about my “interview quotient.” Before 1995, I was rarely interviewed. I didn’t become more interesting in 1995. I just finished shooting a television show called Dweebs for CBS. It was going to be put on the fall schedule. The network arranged for all of the actors to take part in what is referred to as a “satellite tour.”
The satellite tour is like a lot of things in acting. It sounds far more interesting than it actually is. The actor shows up at a nondescript location. A room. Even a hallway will do. He or she sits on a metal folding chair and is sequentially interviewed by several dozen reporters from all over the world in about two hours.
The members of the press were always the same. They were affable and had no idea who I was. I was nervous. I couldn’t help but wonder what handful of questions they would ask me. Were they intent on boiling me down to my essentials like my mother with a chicken? Did they have questions honed by time and experience that would pluck out the heart of my mystery? No. Not even interested. To a man (and woman), they smiled and said, “It will be painless. A few softballs. All routine. Nothing tricky.” They would just hit me with some fak.
I nodded as if I understood, but I had no idea what fak was and if it was appropriate for them to hit me with it. Used in a sentence, fak sounded dirty. It sounded like something you would find at the bottom of a monkey cage. After an hour and a dozen reporters, I got the idea that fak was fak. It wasn’t going to change. Its purpose was to reveal nothing. Sitting on my folding chair, the interviews began to feel like a curious exercise in indifference.
I was disappointed. I always imagined being interviewed would be a defining moment in my life as an actor. If it didn’t mean I had arrived, at least it meant I had been cast.
During hour number two, I muscled up the nerve and asked a friendly and partially intoxicated interviewer from Australia what fak was, thinking if it was naughty, at least he lived on a different continent. He laughed and explained that fak wasn’t a thing. It was three letters—FAQ—and it stood for Frequently Asked Questions.
“Really? It’s initials?”
“That’s right, mate. Shorthand. They call it an acronym.”
“Like ‘scuba’?”
“Right.”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
The interviewer laughed. “I wouldn’t do that to ya.”
I was fascinated. FAQ became a mystery. Not the “question” part of it, but the “frequently” part.
“Are these the questions people ask with great frequency?”
“I don’t know. I expect so.”
“Why?” I asked.
“A way to get to know you, maybe?” His eyes were especially bright from a combination of the Foster’s and the fact that this interview was different from the last fifteen he had done.
“But does anyone know me after these questions? ‘What’s your name? Where were you born? How long have you been an actor? What do you think of your part?’ Do people want to know these things? Seems kind of unimportant.”
My Aussie interviewer looked at me over the tops of his black-framed glasses as he took notes with more vigor. “What questions would you ask? With frequency?”
I rocked back in my folding chair. I looked at his open face. “If I was the interviewer I would ask you: who was the first person you ever fell in love with?”
The interviewer flushed red. He smiled and shook his head. He thought about it for about half a second. “Lord. That would have to be Sally. Sally Carmichael.”
“When did you meet Sally?” I said.
He started laughing and looking at the ceiling. “Ten. I was ten.”
“And what was it about Sally that did it for you?”
He looked me in the eye. He leaned forward as if he were revealing an age-old secret. “Her laugh. She had a great, good sense of humor. She brightened up the room. Her hair was blond and always
had a perfect little curl to it. I got the nerve one day to walk her home. I have never had such a good time with a girl as on that twenty-minute walk to her house.”
“Where is Sally now?”
“Married. Three children. Lives in another town. I tracked her down and wrote her last year.”
I started laughing. “Did she write you back?”
He nodded.
“Did you learn anything more about her?”
He nodded again. “Yeah. She still remembers the walk.” He blushed.
An employee of CBS came by and said that our time was up and there were other interviews scheduled. We stood and shook hands and wished each other good luck. The afternoon continued. Inundated in a sea of FAQ.
ACCORDING TO THE reporters at the satellite tour, the answers to my most frequently asked questions would be: Stephen Tobolowsky. Dallas, Texas. Yep. Born there. Yes, Cowboys fan. Six foot three. And I have been a professional actor most of my working life.
Well, stop right there. To be fair, that’s somewhat interesting. There aren’t many professional actors walking around. And I am an actor that works in show business. That’s even more unusual. You can never be too sure when an actor says they’re working, what they really mean.
Case in point: in 1972, my girlfriend, Beth, and I did summer stock in upstate New York. We were doing a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream when Jack (who shall remain otherwise nameless) left our company because he had gotten “a job on Broadway in Pippin.” We had a big good-bye celebration for him. He said the next time we were in the city, we should see the show and come back to the stage door afterward to say hello.
We took him up on the offer a couple of months later. Beth and I went to Pippin, but Jack was nowhere to be seen. We went to the stage door and asked for him. The guard called back for Jack. He showed up wearing elbow-length black rubber gloves. I told him we enjoyed the show but missed him onstage. I asked if he was in the chorus. Beth asked if he was disguised as a mushroom or a tree.
The Dangerous Animals Club Page 2
