I hadn’t said nary a word in almost three years. Three years, which is a damn long spell when you take into account my current age. I’m no expert when it comes to arithmetic, but even I can figure out that’s a quarter of my life. No sir, not one single word since the night my father passed. Norma always knew I wasn’t deaf and dumb, which is exactly what the nuns at the Hollygrove Orphan’s Home would like you to believe, but if you ask me I don’t care either way.
That was one of the best characteristics about Norma, she could understand your darkest and deepest secrets, just by looking into your eyes and she never judged you for it. I wish I had that knack. Maybe if I did, she wouldn’t be leaving. Heaven knows I tried. I stared and stared with all my might. I gazed and gazed through eyes of stone and hands of steel into her kind and open face but without the results I was searching for. She was broken. Something busted her up real good and as much as I stared I couldn’t figure out what the blaze it was. Sometimes people aren’t ready to be fixed, I suppose.
So, she was leaving, just like my mamma did and my daddy soon after and through all the will I tried to muster, I couldn’t come up with one Goddamned declaration to memorialize the moment. Nothing. Not one syllable. Norma was leaving and my tongue was plum tied. By God, I’d have given anything to form the words I was thinking: GOODBYE, GOODBYE, MY ORPHANAGE FOR A GOODBYE!
***
The day we left Indiana my daddy was obsessed with John Barrymore. There were many before and after him; Chaplin, Fairbanks, Flynn and Pickford to name a small fraction but, on the day my mamma left us for a man named Henry Stuart Mitchell, and me and my old man piled all our belongings into his ‘31 Ford Model A and set out towards the west coast, it was John Barrymore and the talkies that my pop, Raymond Chance, was passionate about.
“A horse, a horse ... my kingdom for a horse!”
The old man blurted and then laughed. That was his way; as if any moment was an opportunity for a distraction and we were in need of some serious distractions, boy, let me tell you.
“You see, Eddie, that there is one of the most famous lines in literature.”
He gripped the wheel and smiled over at me. I kept my eyes on the road.
“Yes sir, William Shakespeare, Richard the III ... arguably his most notable tragedy!”
The old man took a break from talkin’ just long enough to notice I wasn’t doing so well. In fact, what I was feeling was sickness.
It wasn’t homesickness, not yet at least, we were only a couple of hours out. I can only describe the feeling as guttural uncertainty and either we were going to smell that uncertainty all the way to Hollywood Boulevard or he was going to have to pull over. My dad looked me in the eyes and sensed the magnitude of my predicament and without words maneuvered us to the shoulder of the single lane highway called Route 66.
***
We were sitting near the top of our favorite hiding spot, nestled away in a deep 100-year-old oak tree, tucked perfectly in a clump of trees next to the fairway on the 12th hole at the Wilshire Country Club. It was midday and neither of us was laughing. We usually spent this time of our day laughing, but today it was all about the lumps in our throats, goodbyes on our minds and afflictions from the past holding our tongues hostage. We both knew the depth of the situation. We had seen enough foster kids moved from place to place to know that this moment together was probably going to be our last.
I have to tell myself not to cry. Men aren’t supposed to cry, you see, which is odd because I think if I allowed myself to, every ounce of water that my body held would come cascading out of my eye sockets at this particular moment. But men don’t cry, they aren’t supposed to, at least. One thing I failed to mention is how perfect she is. I wouldn’t be so bold as to call her my girl, if I could talk that is, but it was just a common understanding throughout the Hollygrove Orphan’s Home that Norma Jean Baker was sweet on me. I was pretty keen on her myself.
***
“Don’t cry son,” he said as he took a deep drag off his Pall Mall unfiltered cigarette. “Men aren’t supposed to cry.”
I was hunched over my Florsheim shoes, shaky and out of breath. Every time a car passed a gust of wind brought a much-needed blast of oxygen into my lungs. I didn’t want him to see me crying but I didn’t stand a chance. Clark Gable wouldn't cry. Neither would Spencer Tracy. No leading man would cry and these were the standards my father saw fit to live up to. That is why we were going to the magical land of California. The old man was a dreamer. It cost him his marriage, but I didn’t care too much about that anyway because my father was my hero and far better than any leading man I had ever seen on screen and a damn sight far better than any Goddamned insurance salesman named Henry Stuart Mitchell.
“She’s a witch,” I trembled under my breath. “She hurt you, pop. She hurt you and I won’t ever forgive her for it!”
It was all coming out now, my frustrations and most of my breakfast. I didn’t seem to have one lick of control over my tongue, no sir. A rickety old milk truck passed at a high speed almost blowing me into a gravel ditch. My old man reached out his thick hand and lifted me up and onto my unsteady feet.
“You stop it. All this talk of not forgiving is only going to hurt you, do you hear me?”
I heard him all right, but I had no idea what the heck he meant.
“Your mother, she’s not like you and me, which isn’t to say she’s a bad person, she’s just different.”
Somewhere in the back of my brain a bell rang and a stinging feeling of panic spread through my bones as I scrutinized my personal identity from all ten of my years. I thought through everything, every decision I made, every interaction with others and I tried to compare it to what my mother, the witch, would do, because what if my pop was mistaken? What if I was like her? We were cut from the same cloth, as they say, weren’t we? What if my old man got it all wrong and he was now traveling across the country with a spittin’ image of his ex-wife, my damn mother, the witch?
I made a very important decision standing there on the side of the road with my old man’s heavy hand lying across my shoulder. I decided that I would always do what my father told me to do and that was a sure fire way not to end up like my mother and if that meant I had to forgive her right then and there, well, that’s exactly what I was gonna’ do. So, I did. I forgave her. I forgave that witch.
“Will we get to see a movie star, pop?”
I said with a sudden feeling of assuredness.
“I do believe we will.” A huge smile came across his stubbly face. “It just so happens our man John Barrymore is playing in a production of Richard the III, I didn’t want to say anything, but boy are we in for a treat. Wait till you hear that voice, my son, it will give you a whole new appreciation of life.”
***
She was looking at me so oddly I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t run away, which is what my legs were telling me to do. I wouldn’t dare kiss her, which is what my heart was begging me to do. I just kept looking away awkwardly like a deaf and dumb imbecile who had seen more on screen kisses than most adults, but couldn’t figure out a way to plant one on the only girl he ever loved and probably would never see again.
“Aren’t you gonna’ kiss me, Eddie?”
I was suddenly aware of how close our faces were in proximity to each other. I could feel and smell her sweet breath on my cheek. My heart was pounding so hard I was certain she could hear it, which resulted in me trying to blanket the sound with the palm of my sweaty right hand.
Nice move, Don Juan, I thought to myself as I sat not knowing what to do with my other hand, which awkwardly found its way to her knee. So, there we sat, for what felt like hours, as she was expecting a kiss, but what she got was a creep pledging some kind of strange allegiance to her Goddamned kneecap.
I suppose she didn’t want to beat around the bush anymore because the next thing I know our mouths were all tangled up in a wet and open mouthed kiss. Before I could decide whether I loved it or hated it, I heard an all too familiar sound that I’d been hearing a whole lot these past couple of years as a caddy.
It was a jarring sound, but trust me it was designed that way, because what it meant was imminent danger was headed in our direction.
The sound was “FORE” and the danger was in the form of a golf ball that hit our tree and fell to the leaves and debris below us. Our moment was ruined and now we were in a position to be discovered, which was sure to result in horrible consequences for both of us, so I went into caddy mode and tracked the ball with my eyes to its resting place.
I placed a single finger over my lips and gestured with my hand for Norma to stay put. I knew someone would be along soon and I figured if I helped them to their ball they would be out of our hair quicker and Norma and me could get back to our goodbye and possibly another kiss. She nodded tenderly, her face flush and rosy. I sensed a warmth in her I’d never felt before and it was almost like she was the Norma I used to know, the girl who wasn’t broken. I got a foothold on the branch below and hurried down the old oak tree, my eyes never leavin’ her face.
“Careful Eddie,” she whispered. “And hurry back, you hear?”
That was the last time I ever laid eyes on Norma Jean Baker.
My feet reached the ground with a thud and that’s when it happened – that’s when I said my first words in nearly three years.
***
In the winter of 1934 my old man and me saw a movie called Captain Blood starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. My father’s obsession instantly turned to Errol Flynn.
“What magnetism. Mark my words, Eddie, that man is a star.”
Our new life was great. Our apartment on the corner of Wilton and Hollywood Boulevard was everything we needed, let me tell you. Our days were, in my eyes, perfect. Each morning my pop cooked me breakfast and I would read to him from The Times, including all the theater and movie reviews. He walked me to school every day and then after school I would hop on the Pacific Electric Railway’s red car to Grauman’s Chinese theater where my father was the projectionist. He was so proud of his job and I was lucky to be his son, my laws yes, because not only did I get to see every movie that came through there, I also got to eat all the popcorn and candy I could get my hands on.
“This is the most famous movie theater in the world, Eddie,” he’d say. “People come from all over the place to see movies here and that brings me a certain responsibility, a responsibility to the people.”
***
The Charge of the Light Brigade was a film my old man couldn’t wait to see. It starred good ole’ Errol Flynn, my pop’s hero, and mine too if I knew what was good for me.
The night it opened at Grauman’s was going to be a special occasion because my old man took off work.
“We’re going to see it properly; seated and with the rest of the audience.”
“Really, pop?”
He leaned into me and spoke very clearly.
“You don’t have to go to school today either, I’m thinking you’re due for a new suit.”
The movie lived up to our expectations and was quite the accomplishment, yes indeed. We left the theater giddy with excitement, quoting our favorite lines and pretend fighting all along Hollywood Boulevard heading east toward Wilton. We were starting to break away from the throng of people when my dad belted out, in a horrible British accent …
“Men of the twenty-seventh. Our objective is Surat Khan! Forward!”
He was really hamming it up and gesticulating and instructing his ten thousand soldiers, leading them on their charge, index finger pointed in the air when suddenly we were stopped by a desperate voice.
“I want your wallet,” the voice said. “I don’t want no trouble, just your wallet, got it?”
My dad spun quickly, his index finger pointing toward the voice. My pop never even saw the gun. I realized what was happening and screamed as loud as my vocal chords would allow, but it was all for nothing because the owner of the voice thought my daddy had a gun and pulled the trigger, ripping a hole the size of a quarter straight through my old man’s heart.
***
I didn’t choose not to speak, I swear to God. It wasn’t a choice if that’s what you’re thinking. It just happened that way. And, similarly when the moment arrived, I didn’t make any conscious decision to say anything. Heck, I was pretty sure my vocal chords were all dried up and useless at this point in my life and that’s why I was just as surprised as anyone that those words came flying from my tongue just as though I had been talking my whole life.
I arrived at the old, yellowed golf ball marked with a Wilson flag and the number three on it. I leaned down to check the lie when a pair of white golf shoes came into my view. I stood up quickly and pointed at the ball.
“Thank you, lad,” the man said in a thick Australian accent.
I immediately recognized something about the tone of the voice … and so I turned around, and sure as shit I was standing face to face with Errol Flynn.
***
My pop was dying and we both knew it. I was squeezing him as tight as I could, trying to feel every ounce of life that was still left in him.
“I’m not crying, son,” he muttered.
I took off my brand new blazer and set it behind his head.
“I know you ain’t, pop.”
I tried not to, but I couldn’t help myself … I broke into tears. It felt like he was gettin’ lighter in my hands. He was probably disappointed in what a coward I was being.
“It’s gonna’ be okay, Eddie.”
His eyes were staring off as if he could see something and then a smile came over his face.
“Once you find him, I know you will be all right.”
“Find who, pop?”
He took one of his last breaths and calmly replied.
“Errol Flynn … now be a good boy and always know that I love you, son.”
“I love you, pop.”
I didn’t say another word for three years.
***
“Mr. Flynn?”
He nodded and smiled at me. I kept staring in awe, I swear to God he must of thought I was a nut. He held his hand out and I shook it and wouldn't let it go.
I couldn’t let it go.
BB
