Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates
SPECIAL DELIVERY 3 AUGUST 1962
There came Death hurtling toward her yet she was unable to know in what form, and when.
That evening following the news of Cass Chaplin’s death.
Hanging up the receiver numbly after being informed she’d sat for a long time unmoving, tasting something brackish and cold at the back of her mouth. Cass is gone! We never said goodbye. He’d been thirty-six years old, her very age. Her twin. Obituaries would not be kind to Charlie Chaplin, Jr., son of the Little Tramp.
“Am I to blame? It was so long ago.”
To feel guilt would be a luxury now. To feel alive!
It was Eddy G who’d called. Eddy G sounding drunken and belligerent and immediately recognizable.
Her first instinct was to demand how did you get this number, this is an unlisted number, recalling then the President correcting her There are no unlisted numbers. In paralyzed silence she listened knowing Eddy G would be calling her only to report the death of Cass Chaplin, just as Cass would have called her only to report the death of Eddy G.
So Cass is the first of us! The Gemini.
She’d always thought of Cass secretly as the father of Baby.
Because she’d loved him more than she’d been able to love Eddy G.
Because he’d entered her life before Marilyn. When she’d been “Miss Golden Dreams” and all the world before her.
Am I to blame? We all wanted Baby dead.
Cass had died, Eddy G was saying, early that morning. The medical examiner estimated between 3 and 5 A.M. In a place on Topanga Drive where he’d been staying, and Eddy G visited sometimes.
It was an alky death not a junkie death, Eddy G informed her.
Norma Jeane swallowed. Oh, she didn’t want to know this!
Eddy G continued, his voice quavering; you could see the actor working up to his buried emotion, his fury, beginning quietly, a deceptive calm, then you build, a clenching of the jaws, a thickening of the voice. “He was on his back in bed and out cold, and he’d been drinking, mostly vodka, and some mushy stuff might’ve been egg rolls and chow mein, and he started to puke, too weak to turn on his side and nobody was with him, so he choked in his puke and strangled. Classic alky death, huh? I found him when I came over this morning around noon.”
Norma Jeane was listening. She wasn’t sure what she’d heard.
Hunched forward now, a fist jammed against her mouth.
With boyish urgency Eddy G was saying (as if this was really why he’d called, not to hurt Norma, not to upset her), “Cass left a memento for you, Norma. Most of his things he left for me—see I was his good buddy, never let him down, so he left most of his things to me—but this memento, ‘This is for Norma someday,’ he’d say. It meant a lot to him. ‘Norma always had my heart,’ he’d say.”
Norma Jeane whispered, “No.”
“No what?”
“I d-don’t want it, Eddy.”
“How d’you know you don’t want it, Norma? If you don’t know what it is?”
She had no reply.
“Right, baby. I’ll send it. Look for special delivery.”
There came death hurtling toward her and at last in the waning light of what had been (she assumed, she hadn’t gone outdoors, nor had she opened most of her blinds) a day of smothering heat there was Death ringing her doorbell, and the dread of waiting was over, or would soon be over. Death smiling showing white chunky teeth, wiping his sweaty forehead on his sleeve, tall lanky Hispanic boy in a Cal Tech T-shirt. “Ma’am? Package.” His bicycle was ugly and stripped bare and would propel him through clogged traffic and she smiled to think of him, a stranger, bearing Death to her, and oblivious of what he brought her. He was employed by Hollywood Messenger Service and smiling hoping for a generous tip at this Brentwood address and she didn’t want to disappoint him. Taking from his hand the lightweight package, wrapped in candy-cane striped tinsel with a dimestore satin bow.
“MM” OCCUPANT
12305 FIFTH HELENA DRIVE
BRENTWOOD CALIFORNIA
USA
“EARTH”
She heard herself laugh. She signed “MM.”
The delivery boy didn’t say that’s your name, ma’am? that’s a strange name? Didn’t recognize “MM” evidently.
In her clothes that were laundered but not ironed, bare feet with chipped pink-polished toenails, matted and uncombed hair dark at the roots hidden by a towel turban. In her very dark oversized sunglasses whose lenses drained the world of color like a photo negative.
She said, “Wait? Just a m-minute.”
She went to search for her purse, and where was her wallet not in her purse, oh where had she put it, she hoped it hadn’t been stolen like the previous wallet, so much taken from her, misplaced, lost, despoiled, and she carried the tinsel-wrapped package as if it were nothing out of the ordinary, just a delivery she’d been expecting whose contents she knew, biting her lower lip beginning to perspire searching for the damned wallet amid a confusion of items in the shadowy living room, a lampshade still in its cellophane wrapping on the sofa, Mexican-weave wall hangings purchased early in the summer and yet to be hung, ceramic vases glazed in earthen colors, oh where was her wallet? containing her State of California driver’s license, her credit cards, what remained of her cash? and in the bedroom with its sharp medicinal odor laced with perfume, spilled powder, the rot of an apple core that must’ve rolled beneath her bed the other night, at last in the kitchen she found what she was looking for, fumbling through the expensive calfskin wallet a present from a forgotten friend to locate at last a bill, and hurrying back to the front door with it, but—
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
The Hispanic delivery boy had vanished on his chunky bicycle.
In the palm of her hand, a twenty-dollar bill.
It was the little striped tiger.
The stuffed child’s toy. The one Eddy G had stolen for Baby.
“Oh my God.”
So long ago! She’d pulled away the tinsel paper with trembling fingers and at first she’d thought—oh, this was crazy but she thought the tiger might be the one stolen from her at the Home, Fleece had said she’d stolen it out of jealousy but maybe (maybe!) Fleece had been lying; then she’d thought possibly it was the tiger she’d sewed for Irina with dime-store materials, and Harriet had never thanked her; though knowing of course it had to be the tiger Eddy G had grabbed out of a window display. She remembered that store vividly: HENRI’S TOYS. HANDMADE TOYS MY SPECIALTY. Eddy G had frightened her by smashing the window and stealing the little striped tiger because Norma Jeane had expressed a wish for it, for herself and for Baby.
This child’s toy she stared at, her heart beating so hard she felt her body shake. Why had Cass wanted her to have it? For all that it was a decade old it looked new. It had never been hugged and soiled by any child. Cass must’ve tossed it into a drawer, his memento of Norma and of Baby, but he’d never forgotten it.
“But you wanted Baby dead too. You know you did.”
She examined the card Eddy G had included with the toy. Unless this was something Cass had typed out in anticipation of his death.
TO MM IN HER LIFE, YOUR TEARFUL FATHER
“WE ARE ALL GONE INTO THE WORLD OF LIGHT”
The Ghost Spinet. Swiftly she could act when required. When time was running out. Two or three telephone calls & the white Steinway spinet was delivered to the Lakewood Home to be placed in the visitors’ lounge in the name of GLADYS MORTENSEN. Gladys seemed confused when the honor was explained to her but in this new phase of her life (she was sixty-two hadn’t tried to escape the Home or caused disturbances among her fellow patients or the staff hadn’t tried seriously to kill herself in years had become a model/stabilized patient) she was willing to be made happy, or to seem to be made happy, as a child may respond with smiles to the expectations of adults; refused to sit at the piano as urged but she touched the keys shyly, played several chords in the careful reverent way her daughter did
But she had another appointment she explained, saying goodbye to her mother & kissing her & though Gladys didn’t respond with a kiss or a hug in return she did smile, allowing herself to be kissed & hugged by her daughter—This is how a mother behaves, I acknowledge that—probably it was her medication, yet how much more merciful & humane these powerful tranquillizers than a lobotomy or shock treatments & above all preferable to raw unmediated emotion, & Norma Jeane promised to call soon & next time to visit longer & walked swiftly away replacing her dark glasses so they wouldn’t see her eyes, but one of the younger nurses dared to walk with her out to the parking lot, a nervous smiling blonde like a young June Haver, too shy to speak of Marilyn Monroe but saying she’d taken piano lessons for five years & she’d give lessons to the patients. A white piano, gosh! I thought they were only in movies & Norma Jeane said It’s an heirloom it once belonged to Fredric March & the young nurse crinkled her face & asked Who?
The Fireplace. So he’d hated her & she would accept his hatred as once she’d accepted his love, basked in his love & betrayed him & she saw the justice of it, possibly it was laughable, a joke, if her detractors knew they would laugh Cass Chaplin was writing Monroe weird letters pretending to be Monroe’s old man & she believed him; this went on for years. These letters so treasured by her & kept in a little safe protected from fire, flood, earthquake, & the ravages of Time & without allowing herself to glance at them another time these letters typed & signed Your tearful Father she burned in the stone fireplace of the house at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive. The first & last use to which Monroe would put the fireplace.
The Playground. In fact there were several playgrounds, in Brentwood within walking distance, in West Hollywood, & in the city, for she’d been wary of being noticed, being observed & identified as in Manhattan she’d been identified in Washington Square Park years ago observing the children at play & laughing & asking their names, & it was all right then in those months before Galapagos Cove & the fall into the cellar; but now, the earth having shifted on its axis, now she was wise & cautious & rarely returned to a playground more frequently than once every two weeks or ten days. The children she came to recognize though she did not watch them overtly. She would bring a book or a magazine or her journal. She would sit near the swings, facing the front of the slide & the monkey bars & teeter-totters.
She would accept it that someone might be watching her (not a mother or a nanny) from a short distance training his sights upon her & secretly photographing or filming the scene. The Sharpshooter in his van or a private investigator (hired by the Ex-Athlete, still in love with her & bitterly jealous?) & she could not protect herself except by hiding forever in that house & this she refused. For the playgrounds, the children drew her. She loved to hear their excited cries & laughter & their names pronounced by their mothers repeatedly as it’s said we pronounce the names of lovers simply to hear the names, the sounds; if it happened spontaneously that someone spoke to her, that a child ran near her, a ball rolled past her, she glanced up & smiled & yet would not wish to make eye contact with any adult even in her disguise for fear This woman looking like Marilyn Monroe I swear except older & thinner & lonely seeming in the park today! Though still in the right circumstances, if a child ran near & the mother/nanny was a safe distance away she might say Hi! What’s your name? & let it happen if the child paused to tell her, for some children are friendly & sociable & others are scared as little mice. She would not give the stuffed toy tiger to any child. She would not approach a mother or nanny or baby-sitter & say Excuse me this belonged to a little girl who outgrew it, would you like this? It’s clean! spotless! hand-sewn! She would not say even in a fever dream Excuse me this belonged to a little girl who died would you like this? Oh please will you take this. She had too much pride & feared being rebuffed. She could not bear being rebuffed. So her strategy was, she drove to a playground in Los Angeles where children were Caucasian, Negro, Hispanic, & she left the little striped tiger toy on a picnic table near the sandboxes where the youngest children played & she drifted away without looking back & driving home to Brentwood she felt enormous relief, she was able to breathe freely & deeply & smiled thinking of a little girl discovering the toy. . . . Mommy look! & the mother would say But who’s it belong to, that belongs to somebody, & the little girl would say I found it, Mommy, it’s mine & the mother would ask around This yours? This belong to you? & so the scene would play itself out as scenes do, in our absence.
The Time Traveler. It was a time of discipline. It was a time she could not repeat & therefore sacred in its particulars. She was writing in her journal, a poem & a fairy tale. Her schoolgirl notebook had long ago been used up, the little red diary a woman who’d loved her had given her, each page covered in Norma Jeane’s script, & loose sheets of paper now inserted. On one of these new sheets she carefully transcribed, copying the faded ink of an early page So I traveled, stopping ever & again in great strides of a thousand years or more, drawn on by the mystery of the Earth’s fate, watching with a strange fascination the sun grow larger & duller in the western sky, & the life of the old Earth ebb away. At last, more than thirty million years hence, the huge red-hot dome of the sun had come to obscure nearly a tenth of the darkling heavens. . . . A bitter cold assailed me. Still, she was alive.
Chloroform It was a dream & therefore not real. She knew. No evidence otherwise. She wasn’t hallucinating. Chloral hydrate was the safe sedative. She wasn’t in that state of mind. She’d put away the telephone as you would put away temptation. Shut up inside a bureau drawer. And if it rang, like the cry of a baby. Not to be tempted to answer for there was no one with whom she wished to speak except he who would never telephone her. And she had too much pride to call a certain number she’d vowed she would never. If by mid-July it was obvious she’d ceased menstruating it must be for some other reason & she was obliged to know that reason. She examined her breasts: these were/were not the breasts of a newly pregnant woman. She associated such breasts with the smell of the Atlantic Ocean. Galapagos Cove vivid to her/remote as a movie she’d seen long ago in a heightened state of awareness, arousal. She asked one of the doctors & he said we’ll have to do a pelvic examination Miss Monroe & a pregnancy test of course & he’d sounded grave & quickly she’d said Oh but I don’t have time today. Never returned to him. (She had a terror, these doctors & analysts! One day they will betray me. Their patient. They will tell the world Monroe’s secrets & what secrets they don’t know they will invent.)
She understood what menopause was & wondered in clinical fascination Has it begun? So soon? Confusing her age (thirty-six) with her mother’s age (sixty-two). At first glance you’d think one number was double the other but it wasn’t. Yet both were born under the sign of Gemini, there was that fatal connection. And that night there came someone, it must have been more than a single individual, yet she was aware only of one, entering her house by a rear door, & as she lay in her bed naked beneath a single sheet unable to move her muscles rigid & paralyzed with animal fear a wadded cloth soaked in chloroform was pressed over her mouth & nose & she could not struggle to free herself to save herself
White Bathing Suit 1941. “This poor sweet dumb kid. Sure we all knew her. She had a new bathing suit, it was white & glamorous, one-piece, crossed straps in front & an open back & the kid had this gorgeous knockout figure & curly hair down her back but the bathing suit was made of cheap material, & when she went into the water (this was at Will Rogers Beach) it turned almost transparent, you could see her pubic hair & her nipples & she didn’t seem to notice running & squealing in the surf & Bucky turned bright red & flustered & must’ve said something to her finally because he got her calmed down & put a towel around her waist & made her wear one of his shirts, so big on her it looked like a tent billowing. She got embarrassed then & never said a word more that day. We never laughed at her to her face but we laughed a lot, it was quite a joke among us; when Bucky & his girl Norma Jeane weren’t around we’d laugh like hyenas.”