by Sam Harris
My mother also had a motto: “Don’t expect anything and you won’t be disappointed when it doesn’t happen.”
She was a full-time mom/housewife who, I suspect, would have pursued the arts had she not fallen prey to the confines of the small-town women’s mentality of her era. Her overly regulated and expertly organized household, PTA meetings, and Mothers’ Club were a cloak for an often desperately misunderstood and suffocated soul which erupted in dramatic weight fluctuations, bouts of anxiety and depression, and, years later, her late-blooming alcoholism. The family doctor prescribed the popular weight-loss one-two punch: amphetamines and sheep urine injections. It was like Dr. Feelgood meets Dr. Doolittle.
It was not uncommon for her to raid my bedroom at three o’clock in the morning and tear through my toys and books, forcing me to reorganize them. My homework was meticulously checked, not only for errors but for evidence of corrected errors. If there was an eraser smudge, it was shredded and I had to redo it, so that the illusion of perfection was intact.
Given that her veins were coursing with speed and sheep pee, I think I got off easy.
Beneath it all, my mother and I had a covenant, and one Easter we unknowingly began a tradition. While unpacking groceries, she stopped to remove the cellophane wrapping from a package of those marshmallow peeps. Suddenly, violently, she ripped the head off one of the little chicks. Gummy innards stretched like a rubber band and then snapped. There was a moment of silence as she waited for my reaction. I took the box from her and ripped another head off. Then she. Then I. We began laughing hysterically, uncontrollably, all of our pent-up angst of perfection melting away with each sugary, sticky headless chick. The perpetual thin ice on which we circled my father was the silent glue of our alliance.
In these many years, the ice has thickened, my father has grown into a sentimental pussycat, and my mother has decades of sober recovery behind her, but the ritual of ripping the heads off innocent chicks remains. We don’t necessarily celebrate the resurrection, but come Easter, my mother and I exchange a box of marshmallow peeps, knowing their numbers are up.
I believe my young parents found themselves in the middle of a cultural crossroads, when their 1940s–50s upbringing and postwar nationalism were being challenged left and right—mostly left. But race riots, Kent State, and the multiple political assassinations of the day were somewhere far, far away, and squirrelly little Sam was right in their own backyard, singing “Stormy Weather” at the top of his lungs.
And meaning it.
Though my mother had learned not to have expectations for herself, she had a great deal for me. She recognized me, not for what she could never have, like some stage mothers, but for what she knew I already had.
When I was seven, she enrolled me in a children’s acting workshop at Tulsa University—a six-week program that culminated in a single performance of a fifteen-minute play: Stone Soup. I starred as the Traveling Stranger who convinces the selfish starving townspeople to collectively make a stew by contributing bits and pieces of food to his pot of water with a stone in it, so that everyone would eat better. It was kind of like The Music Man meets The Galloping Gourmet.
My father had an upcoming out-of-state band competition, which was also to double as a rare family vacation. The destination was Canyon City, Colorado, home of “The Royal Gorge—Colorado’s Grandest Canyon,” featuring soaring granite cliffs that towered a thousand feet above the rushing Arkansas River. We’d collected brochures and pictures and I had looked forward to visiting the awe-inspiring natural wonder for months. There were no awe-inspiring natural wonders in or around Sand Springs, though people did travel upstate to the Tall Grass Prairie to see tall grass.
As for heights, in nearby Tulsa, there was the semi-awe-inspiring unnatural wonder of the Prayer Tower at Oral Roberts University—a sort of Jetsons-meets-Jesus edifice that more resembled a ride at the county fair than a place of reflection.
The Royal Gorge was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime adventure, and I secretly planned to paint my name on a rock and, when the aerial tram was suspended high above the gorge, throw it over the side so that a part of me would be there forever.
Coincidentally, my single performance of Stone Soup fell right in the middle of the band trip. My parents were still only in their twenties, but they somehow found the wisdom and respect to give me the choice: I could go with them or stay and do my fifteen-minute play, miss the vacation, and be separated from my family for a week for the first time.
I chose to stay and do the play, under the care of Memo.
Getting to make that decision forced me to attach a value to my love of performing. At seven years old, I knew what I wanted to do.
• • •
I could not get enough of music and theater and movies. I spent much of my days escaping over a turntable, listening to a peculiar amalgam of blues and R&B (Billie Holiday, Jackie Wilson, Aretha Franklin) and musical theater (Mame, Oklahoma!, Funny Girl, Gypsy, Carousel); and many weekends watching MGM musicals on television (especially anything with Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, or Fred Astaire).
Unfortunately, my immediate area didn’t provide much for the young thespian. The closest thing Sand Springs had to community theater was the living nativity scene that took place each Christmas in the “Triangle,” a grassy median across the street from the library and catty-corner to Taco Town. I had to think outside the triangle.
I began putting together neighborhood extravaganzas, mostly revue in style, which featured the Broadway and pop hits of the day. These were performed in our unfinished basement—with a cement floor, wood-framed ceilings, and two weight-bearing metal poles in the middle of the room, which proved perfect for hanging a backdrop and provided a backstage, quick-change area. The cinder block walls made for excellent acoustics.
I thought the shows were wonderful, and after I’d mounted a few of them, I decided they needed to be seen by more people than no one, which had been the sum total of our audience thus far. But I was concerned that the entertainment palate of my fellow Oklahoman neighbors wasn’t sophisticated enough for the type of fare I was serving, so I knew I had to come up with a marketing scheme to snag them. Something they could relate to. After careful thought, I had an idea.
I spent the afternoon handwriting flyers on construction paper and distributed them in a three-block radius, inviting one and all to an “Evening of Music . . . and Bowling!!” I set up two two-by-fours on the concrete floor for lanes and used my toy plastic ball and pins. And the people came! It was a tremendous success—the applause of nine or ten adults bouncing off the cinder block walls sounded like my idea of Carnegie Hall.
My appetite had been whetted and the neighborhood kids on my block were too small in number for the kinds of spectacles I was envisioning. I wanted more! But how?
The answer came one day in second grade. A classmate, Jennifer, was—well, she was fat. Undeniably and inarguably fat by anyone’s standards, though today she would be considered merely plump. She preferred plaid tunic dresses with wide pilgrim collars and plastic belts to accentuate her waistline, and wore egg-shaped glasses to accentuate her egg-shaped face and egg-shaped body. Our classmates, being seven years old and therefore cruel or honest or some combination of the two, ridiculed poor Jennifer without pause.
One day, when we were learning how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, our teacher, Mrs. Maule, who knew that Jennifer was an exceptionally gifted artist, asked her to illustrate the process on the blackboard, handing her a box of colored chalks that had been purchased for this very occasion.
It took a half an hour at least, which is like three days in kid time—but we watched as Jennifer painstakingly drew the caterpillar on a leaf, the caterpillar in a cocoon, and the beautiful butterfly emerging. Restless and bored at first, the class was slowly captivated by her skillful hand and careful eye as she shadowed and detailed, bringing the metamorphosis to life. I exchanged looks with Mrs. Maule, realizing what she had planned. Jennifer was the bu
tterfly. A plaid, egg-shaped butterfly. She had a talent we didn’t possess and, therefore, was special. She was still fat. But talented and fat was much better than just fat. We never looked at her the same way again.
Seeing this as an extraordinarily intuitive and caring act, and realizing that Mrs. Maule was dedicated to recognizing our individual gifts, I decided business was at hand. I asked her if I could use some class time and perhaps recess time and perhaps lunch time and perhaps before and after school time to direct a production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. She gave me the thumbs-up and told me she’d suspected something like this was coming when, a month before at show-and-tell, whereas most kids had brought a terrarium or their favorite toy truck, I had taken the words much more literally. For the “show” part, I performed the Act I finale quintet from West Side Story. For “tell,” I explained how all the songs fit together in counterpoint, leaving the characters conflicted at curtain.
My script, which I’d typed on our manual Smith Corona at home after memorizing the TV movie, was ready and I began auditions the next day.
I had no desire to be in the show. Prince Charming was a dull and thankless part and my plate was full, trying to figure out how to make the switch from Cinderella’s peasant rags to her ball gown with the wave of a wand and no time for a costume change. I solved the problem by double casting Cinderella. Teri Mullins was my best friend and bore a striking resemblance to Benjamin Franklin, so she was cast as the plain one. Cheri Craddock was the pretty one, though less talented (a combination I found to be true more often than not later in my career). When the Fairy Godmother cast her spell, all I had to do was flick the classroom lights off and on to create a very slow but dazzling strobe effect, while plain Cinderella spun off as pretty Cinderella spun on. It was as if the Fairy Godmother had granted her a wardrobe upgrade and plastic surgery.
I cast Lance Cheney as Prince Charming. He was dashingly handsome and probably my first crush. More thrilling was the fact that he was one of the few kids in our class whose parents were really and truly divorced. It was exotic and dangerous. His mother was beautiful, independent, and strong-minded, and she was always fashionably outfitted in the way I imagined stewardesses dressed when not in uniform as they sipped olive-brimmed martinis and drew on Virginia Slims. On top of all that, she worked in politics, causing the housewives of Sand Springs to actually whisper in her presence. “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” could have been her theme song.
I was highly attracted to Lance’s scandalous family history, his mother, and, well, him. Even at seven years old, he had a dry, witty quality and I could picture him in a smoking jacket with a satin lapel and really shiny shoes. He had a rebellious devil-may-care attitude, so he was the perfect person to understand my deep concern about morning prayer in school ending with “in Jesus’ name.” He supported me when I complained to Mrs. Maule that the Jews and Muslims were not represented so I didn’t feel comfortable joining the class in the ritual. After reminding me that there wasn’t a Jew, Muslim, or anything other than Southern Baptist Christians in our little town and no one was being excluded, I think she must have admired my gumption, so she allowed me to sequester myself in the bathroom during the prayer. I took Lance in tow and we practiced tying our shoes until the reverent “Amen” was heard through the door.
• • •
More and more, my father was a stew of confusion. While I sensed that he was proud of my talent and that I questioned the status quo, he looked at the extremity of my obsession as something that made me different from the other kids, rather than simply unique. It’s one thing for a seven-year-old to love the stage—it’s another for him to spend hours a day perfecting an Anthony Newley impersonation and then performing it door to door for confused neighbors. When I was eight, my dad signed me up for Little League baseball and, wanting to please him, I dove in full force.
Our coach was Mr. Flynn. He was broad and tanned and manly. His wavy black hair fringed slightly over his ears and into jaw-length sideburns that framed his chiseled, pockmarked face. He dressed in an adult version of the Little League uniform, which I suspected he wore at home, where I imagined he also slept with his mitt under his pillow and ate all of his meals from an actual home plate. He was baseball.
Coach Flynn felt that the tradition of tryouts and winning a position on the team was important for morale, so every afternoon that week, all of us pitched and caught and batted and grounded and fielded. I hadn’t much experience at this kind of thing but was a fast runner—if not a great pitcher, catcher, batter, grounder, or fielder. Still, I gave it my all.
At the end of the week, we gathered in the dugout as Coach Flynn called out our names one by one.
“Morgan!”
Russell Morgan threw his cap in the air and ran to the field, overjoyed. “Patterson! Cook! Moss!”
They tossed their caps and joined Russell to play catch with boyish elation at being chosen. Chosen? We were eight years old, who wouldn’t be chosen? It was the ritual, the accomplishment, the deserving of the title. Finally all the names had been called. Except mine. With the cheering boys in view, playing in the background, Coach Flynn swaggered up to me and bent down, placed his palms on his grass-stained knee breeches, and, in a broad and tanned and manly whisper, said, “You can be water boy if you want . . .”
My father was parked fifty feet away in our imitation-wood-paneled Ford station wagon. I glanced over in time to see him absorb what had happened and then drop his hands and head onto the steering wheel in disgrace or submission or something in between. He didn’t get out and question the coach. He didn’t put his arm around me and offer me a Life Saver. He didn’t even look at me. I picked up my mitt and walked to the car, and we drove home silently, staring straight ahead, never speaking of it again.
I didn’t care if I ever played baseball, but I think it killed my father that day. While he had never been the kind of dad who tossed a ball or practiced batting with me, this moment was not about athletic preparedness. It signified that he wasn’t the only one who knew I was different. Odd. Not like the others. The secret was out. I don’t think he ever blamed me. He was just sad and disappointed, afraid that if I wasn’t like him, my life would be hard and lonely. He saw how the misfits were treated and he didn’t want that for his son.
Suck it up, Dad, I’m in show business.
A few days after the Little League tryouts, my father called out my name, hoisted himself forward from his La-Z-Boy, turned down the TV, and put on a record of classical music. He asked me to close my eyes.
“What do you see?” he said.
I listened and concentrated and let the music create a picture in my mind. “There is a graveyard. And it’s cold and windy . . . and foggy. And there are old headstones.”
The music changed. “What else?” he asked.
“Now there are skeletons dancing around the cemetery. They’re celebrating a new dead person. They’re flying around. The dead person is alive again with them.”
Rather than attaching a story to the music, it was as if I was making the music happen! By the time the symphony ended, I was enthralled. I understood that music came from intention and not the other way around. I could escape to anywhere I dreamed. I could create my own world. With underscoring.
I was the muddled concoction of my father’s contradictions. The same man who warned me that “life is a bowl-a shit” was the channel to my bliss. The infection and the cure. He was, at once, the drought that left me parched and gasping, and the rain that nurtured the single blade of grass, pushing itself up from between the jagged cracks in the sidewalk, and into the sun.
5. The Zoo Story
My four-year-old son, Cooper, and I have little in common.
When he was born, I was the primary caretaker. It was a natural role for me, and Cooper and I had an immediate, primordial bond. I was scheduler and night feeder, burper, soother, then organic baby food maker, onesie stocker, BPA-PVC-phthalate-free checker, lead tester, bab
y proofer. Toppling stacks of baby books, each over a foot high, were piled on and around my nightstand and, though previously a voracious reader of fiction and biographies, I did not open a single nonbaby book—all highlighted, underlined, and dog-eared—for nearly two years.
Danny was head-over-heels in love and couldn’t get enough of our son, but as he bounced the lumpy lox of a do-nothing infant who just ate and pooped and gurgled and spit, I could tell he was eager to get past this stage so they could climb trees and play catch and destroy things. When Cooper took his first wobbly steps, Danny immediately wanted to take him Rollerblading. I kept saying, “Don’t worry, there will come a day before we know it where it’s all about you guys.”
Call me clairvoyant. As Cooper has grown into a full-on little boy, I may remain the go-to guy for meals, boo-boos, permission, daily organization, midnight fevers, developmental research, hard-ass rules, and “feelings,” but now, well, Danny trumps all. His time has come. He is the fun one. He is goofy and crazy and Cooper laughs a particular sound of pure joy that is exclusive to Papa, which is what he calls Danny. I’m Daddy. Daddy is fun, but not that kind of fun.
I go with Cooper’s lead and we have a great time, but I have found myself searching for activities that interest us both. It’s hard. Very hard. I get bored. Very bored. Not with him, but with what captivates him. We sip from different sippy cups of tea.
Cooper loves cars, jets, monster trucks, and motorcycles. All the time. I hate cars, jets, monster trucks, and motorcycles. All the time. Or rather, I have no real interest unless I build a mini-racetrack out of empty Amazon.com boxes complete with a service garage painted in watercolors, where lunch is served at a juice box picnic table with an affixed cocktail umbrella. But I am not remotely drawn to the actual races or endless crashes—and least of all to the cars themselves.
In real life, when asked what kind of car I drive, I say “a Lexus Nebula” because that is the given name of the color. Nebula actually means “an interstellar cloud of dust” but it rings like the name of an Egyptian prince. I do not know the model of my car and I often get SUV mixed up with SVU. I did not test-drive the vehicle before I bought it. It was a Lexus and it was pretty. Nebula.
