them. The four or five times I visited them during that year I spent in Redlands, Mrs. Cummings would put me on a train to Los Angeles, placing me in the charge of a porter. Once, a friend of my father’s, Vin Lawrence, met the train. He drove directly from the station to an all-night miniature golf course. It was brightly lit up, like a small-town circus. Vin loved golf, which he called “the green mistress.”
He talked to me as if I were grown up, in a voice that sounded like soft barking. Now and then he whistled or made popping sounds with his mouth and clapped his small hands together—especially when his stroke had been good—resting the golf club he was using against one leg. He explained that my father had been unable to meet me because he had “lifted a few too many glasses,” an explanation I had heard before that wasn’t one.
He played the little course with utmost seriousness as I walked or waited beside him. He kept up a running commentary. A story about my mother held my attention. He called her “Spain.”
He and my father had searched for and found an elegant black gown for her to wear to a movie opening at Grauman’s Chinese. They didn’t know she had spent the day stuffing herself with olive oil and garlic on dark bread, food for which she had been suddenly possessed by intense longing. She arrived at the theater in time, wearing the velvet gown but stinking to high heaven. It was the first story I’d heard about her. Until then I had had only my own stories.
Another time, no one met the train. It was early evening. I sat for a while on a station bench, a small suitcase next to me. I worked out the words on a sign over a booth a few yards away. TRAVELER’S AID , it read.
I was a traveler and I needed aid. I went over. I don’t recall any conversation, but I do remember the outcome. The woman behind the booth gave me taxi fare, and she smiled as she put the bills in both my hands.
* * *
My parents moved to Malibu Beach, where they rented a house built to look like the midsection of a small ship. A deck jutted out over the sand. At the top there was a large square room, like a captain’s bridge, my father said, from which I could see the vast ocean.
I spent several weekends at the Malibu house. At a fated hour all the mornings I was there, my father gripped my resistant hands and lifted me over the foaming waves of the surf toward the dreadful green waters of the Pacific, into which he dropped me.
I sank at once, then rose, running in the water, keeping afloat in a way that every second left me in doubt about whether I would live to the next. I heard myself gasping and sputtering; it frightened me further. I knew there were miles of water-filled space below me. The only thing keeping me above it was the frenzied movement of my feet. “I’m drowning!” I’d cry. “No you aren’t!” my father called out in a hard, jocular voice from a few yards away. And I wasn’t.
* * *
Malibu was a beach movie palace. Actors and actresses, oiled with various preparations to keep themselves from getting sunburned, lay gleaming on the sand, or walked along the edge of the surf, as I once saw Richard Barthelmess do. On a morning, the next-door neighbors appeared, Lilyan Tashman in a startling white bathing suit, her face a polar snowfield of cold cream, and her husband, Edmund Lowe, with his black thread of mustache.
One Sunday morning, John Gilbert took me for a long walk, holding my hand and talking to me in his high, thin voice. Most weekends I was there, one of my father’s actor friends, Charles Bickford, would drop by from somewhere to sit on the beach and talk to Daddy in his deep voice.
After he had gone, Daddy said, “Actors are so dumb. You wouldn’t believe how dumb they are!”
* * *
Mary Barthelmess, a few years older than I, gave me a pair of rose-colored beach pajamas she had outgrown. When I tried them on, I was stung on my rear end by a bee
He talked to me as if I were grown up, in a voice that sounded like soft barking. Now and then he whistled or made popping sounds with his mouth and clapped his small hands together—especially when his stroke had been good—resting the golf club he was using against one leg. He explained that my father had been unable to meet me because he had “lifted a few too many glasses,” an explanation I had heard before that wasn’t one.
He played the little course with utmost seriousness as I walked or waited beside him. He kept up a running commentary. A story about my mother held my attention. He called her “Spain.”
He and my father had searched for and found an elegant black gown for her to wear to a movie opening at Grauman’s Chinese. They didn’t know she had spent the day stuffing herself with olive oil and garlic on dark bread, food for which she had been suddenly possessed by intense longing. She arrived at the theater in time, wearing the velvet gown but stinking to high heaven. It was the first story I’d heard about her. Until then I had had only my own stories.
Another time, no one met the train. It was early evening. I sat for a while on a station bench, a small suitcase next to me. I worked out the words on a sign over a booth a few yards away. TRAVELER’S AID , it read.
I was a traveler and I needed aid. I went over. I don’t recall any conversation, but I do remember the outcome. The woman behind the booth gave me taxi fare, and she smiled as she put the bills in both my hands.
* * *
My parents moved to Malibu Beach, where they rented a house built to look like the midsection of a small ship. A deck jutted out over the sand. At the top there was a large square room, like a captain’s bridge, my father said, from which I could see the vast ocean.
I spent several weekends at the Malibu house. At a fated hour all the mornings I was there, my father gripped my resistant hands and lifted me over the foaming waves of the surf toward the dreadful green waters of the Pacific, into which he dropped me.
I sank at once, then rose, running in the water, keeping afloat in a way that every second left me in doubt about whether I would live to the next. I heard myself gasping and sputtering; it frightened me further. I knew there were miles of water-filled space below me. The only thing keeping me above it was the frenzied movement of my feet. “I’m drowning!” I’d cry. “No you aren’t!” my father called out in a hard, jocular voice from a few yards away. And I wasn’t.
* * *
Malibu was a beach movie palace. Actors and actresses, oiled with various preparations to keep themselves from getting sunburned, lay gleaming on the sand, or walked along the edge of the surf, as I once saw Richard Barthelmess do. On a morning, the next-door neighbors appeared, Lilyan Tashman in a startling white bathing suit, her face a polar snowfield of cold cream, and her husband, Edmund Lowe, with his black thread of mustache.
One Sunday morning, John Gilbert took me for a long walk, holding my hand and talking to me in his high, thin voice. Most weekends I was there, one of my father’s actor friends, Charles Bickford, would drop by from somewhere to sit on the beach and talk to Daddy in his deep voice.
After he had gone, Daddy said, “Actors are so dumb. You wouldn’t believe how dumb they are!”
* * *
Mary Barthelmess, a few years older than I, gave me a pair of rose-colored beach pajamas she had outgrown. When I tried them on, I was stung on my rear end by a bee
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