Blonde

by Joyce Carol Oates

  To Cass she’d say, laughing anxiously, “Oh—she’s pretty, I guess. This photo. This dress. Gosh! But it isn’t me, is it? What about when people f-find out?”

  The strange shiny opacity of her blue doll-baby eyes he’d be capable of decoding only in retrospect, and then without absolute certainty. For he hadn’t been listening closely. With Norma, you rarely did. She talked to herself, her thoughts crowded her brain and spilled over. The way she clenched her hands, flexed her fingers, touched her lips unconsciously as if to check—what? That she had lips? That her lips were young, fleshy, firm? And Cass had his own broody thoughts. Saying, distractedly, stroking Norma’s hand, which typically Norma turned over to grasp at his hand, her surprisingly strong fingers clutching at his, “Hell, baby: we found out and we love you anyway. Right?”

  He figured it had to do with her being pregnant, and scared.

  “CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF POLISH SAUSAGE”

  Her lovers! From out of the voluminous F.B.I. file labeled MARILYN MONROE A.K.A. NORMA JEANE BAKER.

  These were Z, D, S, and T, among a half dozen others at The Studio. These were the Commie photographer Otto Öse, the Commie screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, the Commie actor Robert Mitchum. These were Howard Hughes, George Raft, I. E. Shinn, Ben Hecht, John Huston, Louis Calhern, Pat O’Brien, Mickey Rooney, Richard Widmark, Ricardo Montalban, George Sanders, Eddie Fisher, Paul Robeson, Charlie Chaplin (senior) and Charlie Chaplin (junior), Stewart Granger, Joseph Mankiewicz, Roy Baker, Howard Hawks, Joseph Cotten, Elisha Cook, Jr., Sterling Hayden, Humphrey Bogart, Hoagy Carmichael, Robert Taylor, Tyrone Power, Fred Allen, Hopalong Cassidy, Tom Mix, Otto Preminger, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Skid Skolsky, Samuel Goldwyn, Edward G. Robinson (senior), Edward G. Robinson (junior), Van Heflin, Van Johnson, Tonto, Johnny “Tarzan” Weissmuller, Gene Autry, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, Fred Astaire, Leviticus, Roy Rogers and Trigger, Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, John Wayne, Charles Coburn, Rory Calhoun, Clifton Webb, Ronald Reagan, James Mason, Monty Woolley, W. C. Fields, Red Skelton, Jimmy Durante, Errol Flynn, Keenan Wynn, Walter Pidgeon, Fredric March, Mae West, Gloria Swanson, Joan Crawford, Shelley Winters, Ava Gardner, *BUZZ YARD*, Lassie, Jimmy Stewart, Dana Andrews, Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford, Cecil B. DeMille, and numerous others. And this was just up to 1953 when she was twenty-seven years old! The most scandalous were yet to come.

  THE EX-ATHLETE: THE SIGHTING

  “I want to date her.”

  The Ex-Athlete was nearing forty. It had been years since he’d swung his final bat in major league baseball, hit his final home run, smiled shyly as seventy-five thousand fans erupted in a frenzy of adulation. In his time he’d broken baseball records dating back to 1922. He was compared favorably to Babe Ruth. He’d become an American legend. An American icon. He’d married, begat children, and had been divorced by his wife on grounds of “cruelty.” Well, he had a temper! Can’t blame a normal red-blooded man for having a temper. Also, he was “Italian, and jealous.” He was “Italian, and never forgot a slight, and never forgave an enemy.” He had an Italian nose, swarthy Italian good looks. In public he was well-groomed. In public he was quiet, well-mannered. He had a reputation for shyness. He had a reputation for gallantry. He favored sports shirts for casual wear, tailor-made dark suits for evening wear. He’d been born in San Francisco into a family of fishermen. He was Catholic. He was a man’s man. By temperament he was a family man. But where was his family? He dated “models.” He dated “starlets.” His name was sometimes in boldface, in gossip columns. By the time he’d retired from baseball he was earning $100,000 a year. He’d given money to his parents, he’d bought property and made investments. He was known to have “ties” with certain Italian businessmen in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. Unsurprisingly, he favored Italian restaurants: veal scampi, pasta, an occasional risotto. But it had to be a scrupulously prepared risotto. He was a big tipper, usually. He went dead-white in the face if served badly. You wouldn’t want to insult this man, willfully or otherwise. He was a man to call the shots. Women referred to him slyly as the “Yankee slugger.” He drank. He smoked. He brooded. He was addicted to sports. He had many men friends, some of them ex-athletes like himself and all of them addicted to sports. Yet he was lonely. He wanted a “normal life.” He watched baseball, football, boxing on TV. When he attended baseball games he was always singled out for attention and applause. The crowd loved the way he rose to his feet—bashful smile, wave of the hand—and sat down quickly, his face flushed. He met his friends in restaurants and nightclubs. Often they were boisterous, picky about food and service, the last ones to leave the premises. But they were great tippers. In public places the Ex-Athlete enjoyed signing autographs, but he did not like to be crowded or jostled. He liked a good-looking woman at his side. Smiling, beaming. Often there were photographers. He liked a woman to cling to his arm but not to cling to him. He disliked women who “tried to be men.” He was filled with indignation and revulsion at the thought of “unnatural” women who didn’t want to have children. He disapproved of abortion. He may have practiced birth control, though the Church forbade any method except rhythm. He disapproved of Communists and Communist sympathizers, “Reds” and “pinkos.” He had not read a book, perhaps had not opened a book, since high school in San Francisco. His grades there had been average. By the age of nineteen he’d become a pro ballplayer. He enjoyed movies, especially comedies and war movies. He was a big man, restless if forced to sit for too long. He attended church only sporadically but never failed to do his Easter duty. When kneeling for Holy Communion, he shut his eyes as he’d been taught as a boy. He did not chew the wafer, he allowed the wafer to melt on his tongue as he’d been taught as a boy. He would no more have taken communion without confessing his sins than he would have stood up in the midst of mass and screamed profanities and obscenities at the priest. He believed in God, but he believed in free will. By chance he saw “Marilyn Monroe” in a publicity photo in the L.A. Times. The blond Hollywood actress was posing prettily between two baseball players. Start of a new season. Batter up!

  The Ex-Athlete stared at this photo for a long time. A hardball, a bat, a dazzlingly pretty radiantly smiling girl with the sweetest face, a sculpted body like the Venus de Milo, and that cotton-candy hair. Here was an angel, an angel with breasts and hips. The Ex-Athlete immediately telephoned a friend in Hollywood, owner of a well-known Beverly Hills restaurant. “This blonde, Marilyn Monroe.”

  The friend said, “So? What about her?”

  “I’d like to date her.”

  “Her?” the friend laughed. “That broad’s a tramp. She’s been a tramp from the get-go. She’s a bottle-blonde. A cow. She don’t wear underwear. She pals around with Jews and lives with two faggot junkies. She’s sucked every cock in town and more from out of town. She’s spent weekends in Vegas servicing the guys. Never leaves the suite. Can’t get enough of Polish sausage.”

  There was silence. The friend in Hollywood thought the Ex-Athlete had quietly hung up, for that was his way sometimes. Instead, the Ex-Athlete said, “I want to date her. Make the arrangements.”

  THE CYPRESSES

  It was Baby’s sixth week. It was Norma Jeane’s birthday week.

  Twenty-seven! Almost too old for a first baby, they say.

  It was a time of sudden revelations.

  “Heyyyy, know what? This thought came to me.”

  The Gemini, the beautiful threesome, were en route to a villa-for-rent. The Cypresses, in the Hollywood Hills. Top of Laurel Canyon Drive. This was the sixth or seventh “villa” the Gemini had been shown since the start of their “epic search.” (These were Cass’s words. Cass was their master of words.) They were seeking the ideal environment for Norma Jeane’s pregnancy and, after his birth, for Baby’s early months. “We are the products of our time and place,” Cass said. “We are not pure spirit. Of the earth we are born, and precious metals from the distant stars. We must rise above the smog-bound
City of Angels as above history—hey, you two listening?” (Yes, yes! Norma Jeane, starry-eyed in love, was always listening; Eddy G, he’d shrug and nod: sure.) “In each birth, the world begins anew. In this birth, we’ll assure it! The future of civilization may rest in a single birth. The Messiah. You can say the odds are against the Messiah but so what? Toss the dice.”

  When Cass Chaplin spoke so eloquently, with such passion, who were Norma Jeane and Eddy G to doubt?

  Norma Jeane was the Beggar Maid beloved by two ardent princes. One gave her books to read, books that “meant much” to him, the other gave her flowers, solitary flowers, flowers with a look of having been picked with inspired haste, their stems broken off short, beautiful delicate petals just past their bloom, leaves stippled with black spots.

  “Beautiful Norma, we adore you.”

  So happy. And never so healthy in my body, so I came to see that worship of God is but the spirit of Divine Health (or Healing).

  There is no Devil. The Devil is a sickness of mind.

  That day, Eddy G was driving them up into the Hollywood Hills above the smog-bound wicked city. The sky overhead was a fair fading blue. The air was stirred by a warm dry wind. Gravel crunched beneath the wheels of the lime-green Caddy driven with the usual skill and that air of just-restrained mayhem typical of Eddy G, who, when cast in films, was the good-looking-young-brash-guy-who-dies, usually violently. Norma Jeane sat beside Eddy G, and beside Norma Jeane was Cass Chaplin. (Poor Cass! “Not myself this morning, but who the hell I am I don’t know.”) Norma Jeane in the prime of her young beauty sat smiling between her Gemini lovers, the palm of her right hand cupped protectively against her belly. Her warm moist hand, her beginning-to-swell belly.

  Baby’s sixth week. Was it possible!

  The Gemini, the beautiful threesome, on this fair fine morning in southern California driving up Laurel Canyon Drive to meet the real estate agent who’d taken their epic search as her own, who meant to close a deal with them soon. They called the woman, behind her back, “Theda Bara,” for she’d made herself up in that dopey-sexy style of a bygone era; you felt sorry for her (well, Norma Jeane did), yet almost you wanted to laugh in her face (Cass and Eddy G). And suddenly, so spontaneously you’d swear he had only just this instant thought of such a thing, Eddy G cried, thumping the steering wheel, “Heyyyy, know what? This thought came to me.” Norma Jeane asked what thought? and Cass grunted something unintelligible (oh, God, Cass’s guts were churning with such fury Norma Jeane could almost feel it; she’d been made to feel subtly guilty by his telling her he had “sympathetic morning sickness,” exacerbated by the fact that she had virtually no morning sickness herself). Eddy G went on, excited. “It’s like a revelation, y’know? What we must do, the three of us, before Norma has the baby, is draw up our wills and insurance policies so something happens to one of us, the other two and Baby collect.” Eddy G paused. His air of boyish enthusiasm, his unscripted energy. “I know a lawyer. I mean, one to trust. Y’see? Whaddya think? You two listening? So Baby will be better protected.”

  There was a beat. Norma Jeane was in a dreamy state. Awash in dreams of the previous night. Strange vivid hallucinatory dreams! A flotilla of dreams, pregnancy dreams she’d described to Cass, saying she’d never had such dreams before, oh, never! Her insomnia had vanished as if it had never plagued her. Never was she tempted to take pills from the household supply. Rarely was she tempted to drink. Drifting into sleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow, though the beautiful boys fondled and sucked and bit and poked her, laughing and tussling each other like kids across, or on top of, her comatose female body. The Sleeping Princess they called her. Her breasts they swore were filling up with cream. Mmmm! Yet the river of night bore her innocently aloft, the river nourished her.

  Never so healthy, Mother! Why didn’t you tell me having a baby would be like this!

  Cass said, clearing his throat, a little edgy, like an actor not up for his scene, “Hey. Terrific idea, Eddy. Yeah! I worry about the kid sometimes. This San Andreas Fault.” He turned to Norma Jeane to inquire gently, “How’s it sound to you, Little Momma?”

  Again, a beat. Norma Jeane seemed not to be responding to this dialogue as the male Gemini wished. She would recall afterward it was so strange: as in a shoot, you can see how your co-actor is willing you to behave in a certain way, as a bridge to his next bit of dialogue, but just possibly you’re holding back, some instinct in your actor’s soul urges you to hold back, to resist, not to go along with it.

  “Norma? What’s your take on this?”

  Eddy G gunned the Caddy’s motor. They were flying up the narrow canyon drive. He’s angry, Norma Jeane thought. Eddy G fiddled with the dashboard radio, a dangerous habit of his while driving. “The Song from Moulin Rouge” came blaring.

  Laurel Canyon Drive was long, curvy. Norma Jeane was determined not to recall the L.A.P.D. roadblock. And Gladys in her nightgown.

  I was just a girl then. Now look at me!

  Cass was pressing his hand over Norma Jeane’s hand, which was pressed against her belly. Against Baby. Of the two men, Cass was the more affectionate when in the mood; Cass was a master of romance, not in the comic style of Chaplin senior but in the solemn Valentino style no female can resist. Eddy G, since the onset of the pregnancy, was likely to tease and banter nervously and shrank from touching Norma Jeane.

  “The crucial thing is, darling, the baby should be protected. From the vicissitudes of fate. What if there’s another Depression? Could be! Nobody was prepared for the first. What if the movies go belly-up? Could be! Everybody in the U.S. is gonna own a TV soon. ‘No one who shares a delusion ever recognizes it as such,’ says Freud. In southern California, delusion is the very air we breathe. So financially I think it might be a good idea for us to prepare for Baby’s future.”

  Norma Jeane stirred uneasily. It was her turn to speak. This was acting class; she’d been thrown into a scripted scene to improvise. One of those exercises, you’re sent out of the room, then called back in to play the scene out with two or more actors who’ve memorized a script.

  Cass was nuzzling his cheek against Norma Jeane’s. The smell of his breath was morning staleness mixed with sweetish staleness like rotted wisteria. “Not that anything is gonna happen to us, Little Momma. We’re our own lucky stars.”

  Now she remembered! That dream where she’d been trying so hard to nurse Baby but his lips would not suck. Do a newborn baby’s lips suck automatically? reflexively? It must be instinct, nature, like a bird building its nest, bees building a hive. But how strange to her that in her dreams Baby had no face (yet!) only just a halo of shimmering light. Norma Jeane said, “Oh, gosh, did you ever think? What people mean by God is maybe just instinct? How you know what to do in a new circumstance without knowing why you know? Like animals tossed into water, they already know how to swim? Even newborns?”

  The male Gemini stared ahead at the rushing canyon road.

  There was Theda Bara awaiting them. At the flung-open gate of The Cypresses. Forcing a smile with dark-lipsticked bee-stung lips and waving gay as a flapper. Her sexy seductiveness was of a bygone era; she was somewhere between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five, if not older. A clay-colored skin, tight and polished about the eyes. Norma Jeane felt sorry for her, and impatient with her. Grow up. Give up!

  Eddy G shouted, sincere-sounding, “Hey, sorry! We late?” He was such a hulking-handsome boy, even if unshaven in wrinkled khakis and smelling of what deodorant ads called B.O., you’d forgive him anything, almost. And Cass Chaplin, with his sulky boy-doll face and unkempt Little Tramp hair women yearned to run their fingers through. And the shy quiet distracted blonde, whom the realtor had recognized immediately as Marilyn Monroe, the newest Hollywood sensation, but whose privacy she certainly intended to respect. The notorious threesome! Of course they were late, more than an hour late, the Gemini were always late. The miracle was if the trio ever turned up anywhere anytime at all.

  Theda Ba
ra, in exaggerated eye makeup, rust-colored sharkskin suit, and crocodile high heels, shook hands eagerly with her clients. How quick she was to placate these glamorous young Hollywood people. “You’re not late at all! Don’t give it a second thought. I love it up here in the Hills. The Cypresses is my favorite property right now, for the view alone. On a clear day it’s breathtaking. If it wasn’t for that mist or fog or whatever it is we could see all the way to Santa Monica and the ocean.” She paused, smiling harder. “I hope you young people won’t judge The Cypresses too quickly? It’s a unique house.”