Read Online A View From a Broad by Bette Midler - Free Book Online

Swedes rising up as one and walking out, impatient with and/or repelled by what they could not understand. The vision was enough to drive even the strongest of divas to drink or worse. Unfortunately, since we had to cross a different border every day, I had neither drink nor worse at hand.
    What was I to do? Running away seemed like a pretty good idea, but I was in my bathrobe and loath to ask Miss Frank for anything in her present state. Lately, she had been even stranger than usual. I think 86-ing the hot dog really got to her. What with all those hours of relish sewing and mustard patching, I suspect the poor woman had developed an intense attachment to the wiener and was, consequently, bummed out when the old skinless bit the dust. And after all, her name was Frank, so that might have had something to do with it too.
    I have learned to discard no possibilities in my efforts to discover what’s really going on.
    But let’s face it: the hot dog had to go. In fact, I was still recovering from that indelible moment during my third performance in London when I stepped out to sing “Lullaby of Broadway” and, without warning, my buns fell off. Right on top of the Duke of B. . . . How could I ever chance that sausage suit again? We left its remains in London, crumpled up and unrecognizable in an alley near the theater, to the deep disappointment of some and the great relief of others.
    I, of course, had my own special reaction to the frankfurter’s demise. In what I’m sure was some sort of psychological counterattack, I felt compelled to eat every wurst I saw. And in Sweden,you see a lot of wursts. In fact, they have as many different kinds of wursts as they do herring: fat wursts, skinny wursts, wursts with sauerkraut and wursts with potatoes, wursts with cucumbers and wursts with herring. Cold wursts and hot wursts, long wursts and short wursts, the best wursts and the worst wursts, I consumed them all.
    So it is not surprising that as I sat there in Jutebory, in that room redolent with jockism, terrified, freezing, and gnawing on the last wurst in town, I desperately needed something to lighten my spirits. But I could think of only one thing that might help: A victim. Someone, anyone, on whom I could vent my misery. But who?
    My musical director seemed an excellent target. His skin was as thick as a rhino’s. I was certain he could stand a bombardment that would send any normal human being fleeing for his life.
    . . the best wursts and the worst wursts, I consumed them all.”
    Unfortunately, as soon as I called him in, I saw that his right arm was in a sling and his left eye was covered with a large square of gauze which he had attached to his forehead with a length of black electrical tape. Clearly, he and his petite amie had had another row. Even for me, he was too lame a target to make any further injury enjoyable. “Do you want to go over some tunes?” he asked through a pair of extraordinarily swollen lips.
    “I want to kill,” I responded.
    He understood. “But I am already dead,” he said. And then, laying my music down before me, out he ran, bellyaching, into the frigid hallway.
    And still I had no outlet for my pent-up emotions. I tried singing my scales, brushing my hair, even running through stage one of my semi—classical semi-dance movements. Nothing helped. I had to have a victim. Just then my manager walked smiling into the room.
    One look into my eyes and he knew that his best move was a quick exit. But I had him. “Why an ice rink?” I screamed. “Why this town I never heard of? Why must my dresser and I be made to freeze like match girls in the snow?” I hurled each question at him like a knife, but he didn’t even flinch.
    “I’m going to go out there and turn that ice rink into a wading pool!”
    Clearly, words were not enough. Crazed with the need to do damage, I reached behind me for something to throw at that face of tempered steel.
    • • •
    When I came to, about