Leaving Home

by Anne Edwards

  Certain incidents on that inaugural tour stand out in my memory even after all the years that have since passed. No blacks in the Southern states had attended the book-and-author luncheons at which I spoke, whereas in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, two fine black authors shared the podium with me.

  Pittsburgh is recalled because of a bizarre incident. A woman, obviously suffering mental problems, grabbed me as I came out of a bookstore where I had signed books. She was diminutive, under five feet, and almost skeletal, dressed abstractly, pieces of clothing hanging at all lengths from sharp bones. Her face was heavily made up, thick black lines encircling the clearest, cold blue eyes I had ever seen. She spat at me and I pulled back. She spat again. “Jesus is returning and those who don’t believe will be struck by a nuclear bomb!” she hissed. The store manager and several bystanders moved between me and the woman, and my driver was immediately by my side to guide me into my waiting limo. I had never had anyone—mad or sane—spit at me before. It was an upsetting experience.

  This was the spring of 1968—a presidential election due in November. The Vietnam War was not yet quashed. Lyndon Johnson had just announced he would not run for reelection. The country was challenged by disunity. Violence was in the air with the upcoming political conventions. What we did not need were outward displays of religious intolerance, or a growing discrimination among the silent majority. The woman in Pittsburgh was mentally ill, but I was suddenly conscious on my tour of people taking their anger out onto the streets.

  I flew over our magnificent mountains and vast, still unpeopled, lands. It is only when you have lived in a small country like England, and an even smaller one such as Switzerland, that you become aware of the awesome size of the States. All of Europe could possibly fit inside our boundaries. That is a startling realization. My flights, when lowering for landings and rising for takeoffs, revealed the remarkable new cities of high-rises and mirrored buildings, new for me as the only other time I had made such an intense crossing of the States was at the age of four, in 1931, the Great Depression at its abyss. My father, with the reality of his sudden loss of status and funds, had piled my mother, his sister and brother-in-law, their two teenage children, and myself into the one commodity he still possessed—a grand 1929, shiny black Packard, purchased before the 1929 stock-market crash and formerly driven by our chauffeur. (Also left behind had been my beloved, cross-eyed governess, Josephine, and several members of our domestic staff.) I sat in the front between my parents (my father driving, my aunt Bea and her family in the back, my two cousins on the jump seats). This was a terrible time for everyone else in the car—but at my young age, I knew nothing about the situation we were in except that we (my parents and I) were together and we were going on a great adventure (or so it seemed).

  That early car trip across America was the happiest memory I have of us as a family. To me, my father was like a commander of a ship. He was in total charge (no one else drove). He directed our route, where and when we stopped, and where we ate. People in small towns came out on the streets and walked around the Packard in awed admiration. On the road, my father sang in his college-cheer kind of voice, “Life’s Just a Bowl of Cherries,” “You’re Just Too Marvelous for Words,” “Mademoiselle from Armentieres,” “Over Hill over Dale” (actually the Marine Corps anthem—but I always called it that), and “Fine and Dandy,” which was from the Broadway show of the same title in which my uncle Dave had costarred. It was to Uncle Dave’s house—at that time, pre–my mother and my residing with him—on a steep hillside in the Hollywood Hills—that was our destination. Uncle Dave had always been Marion’s protector, and he had stepped forward to suggest he might be able to get my father work in some facet of the film industry. Until then, my mother, father, and I could stay with him and my aunt Theo. The rest of the passengers in the car (also without funds) were to be guests of an aunt of Aunt Bea’s and my father’s, my aunt Dean, Big Charlie’s youngest sister.

  Every morning before we set out, my cousin Dickie’s job (he, who traveled on a jump seat) was to wipe the car of all dust so that the black finish shone—a hard task when we drove through the dust belt where there had been a drought and then a wind and the dust clouds were nearly blinding. My cousin Aline (on the second jump seat) was charged with cleaning the car windows. I don’t know who financed the journey, but my father was the banker. We stopped at motels (which I thought were fantastic, like little playhouses). Farmers stood along the highways (no super ones then) selling what little produce they had for pennies. Marion put together bag lunches for us and managed some dinners in our rooms cooked on a hot plate that traveled with us. Aunt Bea (blonde and blue eyed, skin pale, still beautiful and strangely fragile looking although weighing in at over two hundred pounds) was, to my recall, in a state of near collapse for almost the entire trip.

  Our grand vehicle took us from small town to small town, up two-way roads to the ones with a passing lane in larger cities. There was heavy traffic along a good part of our route. It seemed the whole country was traveling west in any kind of vehicle that would move. Hitchhikers lined the way. We never picked up anyone. A man who thought Dickie—sitting on a curb, resting as our car was being refueled—was a hitchhiker, told him, “Boy, hunt for cows, never catch any ride on a mule,” a story my cousin would repeat for years.

  We passed caravans of migrant workers with their barefoot children and their junk heaps; gaunt, hungry faces at broken windows; dead animals—once pets—deserted (“Look away, Anne Louise,” my mother would whisper to me and clasp her hand over my eyes). When we pulled into gas stations there would often be a woman there, a baby in her arms, begging for milk money for her tot. Men came up to my father asking for a gallon of gas to feed a car that was ready for the junk heap (in both cases my father proved benevolent). Going through Oklahoma, Native Americans, donned in full costume, performed Indian dances near roadside restaurants and passed a basket around for contributions from those who gathered to watch (dignity gone, pride vanished). The one most memorable scene in my memory of the entire journey from New York City to Los Angeles (which took us well over a week), took place after we had driven all night through the desert (to avoid the heat and the possibility of the car overheating and breaking down). Dawn, the sun just rising, I awoke to a scene of utter paradise. Everything green and lush, heavily fruited orange groves on both sides of the road.

  Suddenly, a migrant family came in sight, their car parked (stalled and out of gas) to the side of the road in front of us. They were all out of the car barely dressed in tatters, the children (three or four of them) shoeless, newspapers for glass in their old jalopy car windows, boxes tied to the roof. My father parked behind them and got out to offer help to the one male occupant. He returned to our car, took a container of gas we kept in the trunk, and went back to give it to the man. The children began to run towards the ground where there were fallen oranges, an elderly woman with them. They were ravenously biting into their found fruit when a state trooper’s car passed us and pulled up in front of them. Two uniformed men got out, went over to the group, knocked the fruit from their hands, and forced them back to the car. They said something to my father, who returned to our car. The small amount of gas he had given them got the jalopy going—but who knew for how far. The troopers came over to us, looking through the windows inside. “Good day, ma’am,” one said, tipping his hat to my mother, and then withdrew. Both officers seemed amazed at the shiny black, neat-as-a-pin, luxury vehicle. They asked my father some questions about it and then waved us on. We passed the jalopy thumping along just a short way up the road. We all waved.

  That world had disappeared along with those history and literature has called “the lost generation.” I suppose one should be glad of its demise when there was so much suffering and poverty throughout our land. Still, as I flew from city to city and saw and felt the enormity of the despair and disconnect between ordinary people and the government, the young and their elders, I wondered if some things mi
ght not have been better in those days, and if we—the people—had not tried harder we might well have had the best of both worlds. A certain innocence had been lost at the gain of creature comforts, better technology. But home no longer had the same meaning.

  When I arrived back from the book tour, the dogs jumped all over me as a welcoming committee of two. Cathy had arranged a special dinner including candlelight and a dessert she had made. There were several reconciliatory letters from Leon and a loving note of welcome attached to a large bouquet of flowers from Rod.

  • 13 •

  The End of an Affair

  The penthouse across the hall from mine on South Spalding Drive was occupied by Dominic (Nick) Dunne, recently divorced and the father of three children, who was in the depths of a midlife crisis. Our apartments were cojoined only by our upstairs decks that extended from the master bedrooms. We did share the staircase leading to our front doors and the hallway that separated the apartments. I have always made it a point to be casually friendly but not make friends with neighbors, as I work at home and writing is a consuming occupation that can easily be thrown offtrack by a neighbor who wants to borrow something or simply exchange gossip or pleasantries. I never answer the telephone when I am writing, but a doorbell, especially if I am alone, is another matter. Somehow, its ring is like a call to arms.

  On this particular Sunday afternoon, in the fall of 1967, I was by myself, Cathy with friends, and Jay and Lucy on their day off, when the doorbell signaled me to rise from my bed. I was perched on top of the covers working in longhand on some pages for my new novel, research books on the floor a hurdle for me to get to the door of the room. Then there was the apartment’s interior staircase to navigate safely in my robe, which was, since I was barefoot, an inch or more too long. I thought it might be Cathy, who occasionally forgot her keys. It rang again, this time more urgently. “Maybe it’s Rod,” I thought, and ran my hands through my hair to neaten it a bit.

  I opened the door. There stood my penthouse neighbor, Nick Dunne, obviously in a state of great agitation. Whenever we had met before (always in the hallway), he had been dressed elegantly and groomed impeccably—whether in tennis garb or evening clothes. Now, his shirt was buttoned unevenly and hung loosely over a pair of capri pants. His feet were bare in a pair of well-worn slippers. Most notably, his thick, dark brown hair had been hand combed in an absentminded manner. Only once had we spoken more than a brief greeting and that had been a somewhat uncomfortable conversation held in the hallway, wherein I suggested it was not a good idea, considering we both had children (his three—two boys and a girl—lived with their mother, but came on Sundays to visit), for the recognizable odor of marijuana to suffuse the hallway and couldn’t he smoke it in the farther reaches of his apartment? Which, from that time, he apparently had done . . . for a while, anyway. Now he asked, “Can I come in?”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” I replied, recognizing by his state that this was not just a neighborly visit.

  Once inside, he asked, “Can I sit down?”

  “Please . . . I’m sorry. . . .”

  Upon entering the living room, he collapsed into the nearest chair. “This is crazy,” he said. “I shouldn’t have rung your doorbell.”

  “Obviously you are distressed about something. Are you ill?”

  “I thought I was going to kill myself,” he said, seeming to crumble into the back cushions of the chair. “I was afraid that if I was alone a moment longer, I would do so.”

  A chill gripped me and I went immediately into reflex action. Just a few weeks earlier Joyce Jameson, a childhood friend of mine, now a fine comedic actress, had telephoned me late one night to announce that she had swallowed the contents of a bottle of sleeping pills. Her ex-husband, composer Billy Barnes, rang on my second line, which I also picked up while trying to calm Joyce. She had alerted him as well. I said, “Call 911!” Billy thought it better not to do so. She had just taken the pills—we had time. He whizzed over to me and we drove at a wicked speed over the hills to her house and spent several hours holding her under the shower, walking her in the pool, back and forth on the deck, emptying pots of black coffee into her until she finally came out of the stupor we had found her in when we had first arrived. Was there something in the sunshine in LA that drove people to such extreme solutions to their problems?

  “Have you taken any sleeping pills?” I demanded of Nick, this time deciding I would dial 911 if he answered yes.

  “No . . . no.”

  “Shots? Heroin? Cocaine?” He looked disoriented enough for that to have been the case.

  “No . . . no. Everything just seemed so hopeless. I’ve been struggling against . . . suicide.” His mouth quivered when he said the word. “I’m Catholic,” he uttered as an explanation, leaning farther back into the chair and closing his eyes for a moment.

  “You sure you haven’t taken anything?”

  “Yes . . . I mean no . . . no I haven’t.”

  “There’s coffee left over from breakfast. I’ll reheat it, come with me.” I helped him to his feet. He was a well-built, short man, not too sure of his footing. He took my arm and we walked slowly into the kitchen where I sat him down at the corner nook. Our apartments were not reverse images, he commented with some surprise. “Yours is larger,” he said and took the mug with the hot, black coffee that I brought to him.

  “Look, if you want to talk, fine. I’ll listen. Then I’ll forget everything you say. Okay?”

  This brought a faint smile to his very Irish face. There was a line across the bridge of his nose from the glasses he generally wore for his shortsightedness and which he had not put on in his trip of desperation across the hall to my apartment. Things probably looked blurry to him, which did not help in his confused and troubled condition.

  His wife, “Lenny,” after a long marriage, had divorced him. She had been the linchpin in his life. She was an heiress with large sums of money at her disposal. He had dreams of becoming a top Hollywood producer and being accepted into a society that had scorned him in his youth in Hartford, where Irish Catholics were excluded from such circles. Lenny had been a grand-style party giver. She invited the most glamorous and famous guests that she could, and reports of their parties were leads in the social columns in New York and Hollywood, where they moved for Nick to fulfill his ambition. He had not been able to make his mark despite Lenny’s loaded Hollywood celebrity guest lists to their extravagant parties and he did not think he could manage his life without her. Recently, he had been arrested for possession of marijuana. “Put into handcuffs!” he said emotionally. He got off with a hefty fine (paid for by Lenny). He was having a hard time just making the rent, was spiraling downhill and he knew it. And—there was more—he feared he might be homosexual (and he was Catholic).

  Although more cohesive, he was shaking and still in a bad state. I got up, fetched a bottle of scotch or rye—I forget which—and poured him a strong drink.

  He pushed it aside. “No . . . no! I think I’m becoming an alcoholic as well!”

  “Have you eaten anything today?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  I got up and went to the refrigerator and pulled out some makings for a sandwich and ground some beans for a fresh pot of coffee.

  “Lenny is the real thing,” he was saying. “I was not,” he said. “Our friends turned out to be her friends. Once we separated, I no longer got callbacks from them. They were supposed to be the right people who could help me get where I wanted to be—where Lenny wanted me to be.”

  “The right people?” I queried. “Who the hell are the ‘right’ people?” He looked visibly shaken at my bluntness and I switched the conversation to his kids (this was the day they were to visit but he had canceled), and when that was met with a great sigh followed by a clamping of his lips, I moved on to what kind of movies he liked—or wanted someday to produce.

  “Something of worth,” he replied.

  Over an hour had passed and I was still sitting acro
ss from him at the kitchen table in my bare feet and robe. Soon Cathy would be home, perhaps with friends. A house full of young people was not what Nick needed. Yet, I did not think he should be left by himself.

  “Look,” I said, “think of someone you can call. You don’t have to discuss the things we have just talked about. You just need to be distracted.”

  “I don’t think I really would have done it,” he said.

  “I’m sure that’s true. And you aren’t going to do anything drastic. So who can you call? I’ll make a deal with you. Whoever it is, the two of you come here later for dinner. Okay?” There was a telephone on the ledge of the nook and I handed it to him. “I can get you a directory, if you need it,” I offered.

  “I’ll call Mart Crowley.”

  “He’s a good friend?”

  “Yes.” Nick added that Crowley had been supportive since his and Lenny’s divorce. Crowley had then been Natalie Wood’s secretary and a hopeful playwright. His play, The Boys in the Band, recently had been given an acclaimed off-Broadway production while making theater history in its bold treatment of homosexuality. Crowley had returned to Los Angeles and had been helpful to Nick during his growing state of depression.

  I left the room and went back upstairs to put on some slacks, a T-shirt, and slippers. When I returned, Nick was standing by the chair in the living room where he had first been seated and in which my smaller poodle, Biba, sat on her haunches, ears pointed, alerted to defend her territory, my large poodle, Sandy, guarding her right. “Mart is coming over,” Nick said.