Her James Dean Smile

by Susan Birkeland

I remember driving through my parent’s neighborhood in wee hours of the morning on the way to their two story French blue house, I was pie faced with exhaustion. Dad answered, took one look and said, "Hello Boy", and then said, "Get yourself some sleep and clean yourself up before your mother sees you..".

On his way down the hall to their bedroom I heard her ask him what all the ruckus was about. He said, "The boy’s home. You’ll see him in the morning. Go to sleep now, Mother--".

I sat down on the side of my bed, managed to take my shoes off and slept for about sixteen hours. I didn’t even get under the covers but slept right there on the top of the bed. Round about 6pm, I came up out of a subterranean slumber, opened my eyes and watched my football trophies and model airplanes change colors in the dusk. Then I showered and shaved, threw on some jeans and an old jersey and ambled down to the kitchen. I was only half awake, body on auto pilot, head unable to articulate more than the simplest of phrases.

I’m sitting across the table from my father. He looks gray and fairly well disoriented himself, underneath his old stony face.

Then he asked me if I had any plans. I said I was heading West. Why he wanted to know, So I told him. That I’d been in a few plays in New York. That I liked it.

I remember Mother was dressed in a yellow chiffon housecoat. It seemed to me she looked frightened, although I couldn’t say why. Maybe she knew something was not right. Maybe it was just seeing her men at such loggerheads. It was hard to say with my mother, as she was always a pretty high-strung lass. Whatever the reason, her blueberry eyes were glued to me and her little marble hands were shaking ever so slightly as she raised a favorite Haviland china teacup to her lips. She was sipping brandy and chamomile tea--her favorite prescription for calming her nerves and "recalibrating her equanimity", as she put it. I couldn’t hardly touch the big steak and au gratin potatoes she’d prepared. She drank tea, smoked cigarettes and nibbled the crusts of a biscuit. He ate his steak and drank 3 cups of coffee.

When he’d finished, he wiped his mouth and stood up behind his chair. His face and hands were ash gray. He looked old. In one summer, boom, he was on old man. He looked at my mother and said, "So now our son’s an actor on his way to the State that gave us Richard Nixon and Disneyland. I don’t understand you people. Now, if y’all will excuse me, I’m not feeling so well...".

He headed to his bedroom, sat down on the side of his bed and suffered a massive heart attack.

I sat beside his hospital bed for 54 hours.

Before I went to Nam, he told me not to feel guilty about spending time with the Asian Women when I had the opportunity, that the Lord would understand. "One thing about women like that", he said, "You know their price, you pay it, and then the thing is through--". I stared at his gray face, thought about how bold and relaxed he used to look after working on his land. What he loved was land and work and silence.

Did I do this, I kept thinking, did I kill him with my foolish plans and indiscriminate intentions?

I guess I pretty much swam through the arrangements and the funeral. Did I talk with anybody? Did I say ridiculous things? I remember the timorous weight of my mother’s arm through my own.

Vernon was one of the pall bearers, An old family friend, he lived on the ranch adjacent to my father’s--just a moblie home plopped in the middle of a few acres with a bunch of half finished old junk cars all over his yard. Vern knew as much about home heaters, air conditionsers, plumbing and car engines, as anybody in Texas. I used to help him work on cars and widow’s household difficulties. I remember that too. And that leaves were falling, It was autumn. And I remember when they lowered his casket into the ground and then he was gone.

After that, of course, there was food and drinks at the house. Friends, neighbors, uncles, aunts, cousins. I must’ve talked to people. They probably said kind things. Then I lost track of where my mother was. I went upstairs to see if she’d gone to lay down but she hadn’t. I came back down stairs and she was spinning in the middle of the room.

"Oh", she kept saying, "You would do this! You just would!". Her sister Louella Joy caught her and made her stop. "Now you’ve gone and made me ill", she said, "I need to spin in the other direction to re calibrate my equilibrium, don’t you know!". But Louella wouldn’t let her. Instead, she took mother upstairs, removed her clothing, pumped her full of valium and sent her off into the dusky blue twilight.

There was no leaving my mother then. I thought she’d bounce back. Quite suddenly she couldn’t tell you what day it was and could hardly sit through a TV show because the commercials didn’t make any sense with the rest of the storyline. Three time she got out of the house and wandered around until I found her. Once a couple of policemen brought her home, admonishing me to keep better track of her.

My mother was a faultlessly kind and beautiful woman. I was losing her and I didn’t know it.. We went for walks. She liked anywhere near water. I saw to her, had to insist that she wash up and brush her teeth. That sort of thing. I wasn’t sure what we should do. Many of her last days we spent lost in the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle I picked up at the Five and Dime called "Autumn Splendor". I don’t think she much liked doing that stupid puzzle but it relaxed me. I enjoyed losing myself in those colors and matching up edges. A few times she climbed up into the attic and got down her suitcases and would start packing favorite dresses, cans of food, photographs, cosmetics, this and that. We’d leave her packed up for awhile. Then a couple of days later she’d ask me where we were going and why were her suitcases packed. So I’d get her going on that old puzzle while I unpacked the suitcases and put them back in the attic. A few days later, she’d start again. After three rounds of this, I hid the suitcases. Then she became obsessed about not being able to find them.

A few times, I smoked some weed with her. She thought it was pretty adventuresome and I told her everybody in America was doing it. She didn’t want to be left behind, so she smoked it. Then we went to the park and played in the leaves. Orwe’d paint pictures of boats on the ocean and Santa Claus and puppy dogs and dandelions and the shores of Tripoli.

Once I let her make up my face and dressed me up. She patted my head and said Pretty Girl, Oh my Little Pretty Girl. She never did have a daughter. Just one surly boy.

Too often, I got despondent and we’d sit for days and I’d read plays and a few times I got so stir crazy I locked her in the house and went driving around the city, hit a few bars. Took in a couple of old movies. It must have been frightening for her to be all alone and in that house with no company but the television.

Sometime later Vernon called and I invited him to dinner. Mom got so nervous about cooking that Vernon and I took charge--barbecued some chicken. baked potatoes. I made a salad. Mom smoked cigarettes, drank brandy and chamomile tea.

I’d laid out a couple of her prettiest little paintings, thinking it would give her something to talk about. I liked her paintings. But mother had no interest in them. She wanted to talk about "Daddy". All sorts of odd little stories, how he liked his eggs over easy, how his tie pin was upside down when they were saying their wedding vows, how the first time she cut his hair after they were married she cut his bangs all crooked and he didn’t say a word about it.

Toward the end of the evening she asked, "When’s he coming back, Vernon? Why’s he taking so long--?".

"I’m not sure, Sugar", he said, "Maybe you’re gonna have to go check on him--"

"But I can’t find my suitcase. I’ve looked all over the place. I’ll have to look again. I just wish he’d get himself back home, though. I wish he would, Vernon."

"He will, Sugar. Don’t you worry."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

After I got her into bed, I found Vernon sitting on the front porch. It was a warm spring night. I didn’t have much to say, so we just sat there. After awhile he said, "You never talk about the war much, do you?"

"No sir."

"It was a different kind of War, that Vietnam was."

"I guess. But I think Old Sherman hit the nail on the head when he said War is just Hell"

"Yes, Sir. They say heaven’s pretty much the same for everybody. But hell, now there’s a mighty private place--"

"Yup....I can’t work it out, Vern--"

"You will. You were an awfully bright boy, as I recall."

"Bright boys can become stupid men.".

"What about you?"

"The truth?"

"What else?"

"I’m lost, Vern--"

"That a fact?"

"Yes Sir."

"You asking my advice?"

"I am."

"Alright. You seen your mama in there tonight?"

"Yes, sir."

"You seen how she loves him? How she’s followed him even into the darkest twilight--?"

"Yes sir."

"Find yourself a gal like that."

"That’s a mighty tall order--"

"Indeed it is."

"I don’t deserve someone like her"

"None of us does, son. Not a one of us."

In her coffin, my mother’s face looked like the most luminous polished white marble you’d ever want to see. Such an unreasonable and delicate beauty. I could not understand how she loved him so much. He was a bastard of silence. I stared at her, waiting to see that little half smile she always got whenever wildness had won the day. I called it her James Dean Smile. It was the one she used to get after seeing one of his movies. For a couple of days after, she’d be impervious and inattentive. Dark secrets had been lit up inside of her and we all paled in comparison. That woman saw East of Eden five times and Rebel Without a Cause eight. She could never get my father to go with her, so she brazenly went out on Friday early evenings or on Saturday afternoons by herself.

She was crazy for James Dean. She cried for two solid days when he died. On the second day, I got concerned and knocked on the door of her bedroom. She invited me in. Her face was all puffy. She was exhausted. It was five o’clock in the evening and she hadn’t even gotten out of her pajamas. She thanked me for coming to see her. I’d never seen anyone so distraught. It was dusk and the drapes were drawn and I knew she’d been in the dark like that all day. Then she said, "I never loved you more than I do right now, you know".

I didn’t know and I didn’t want to know and I hated James Dean. "Are you alright, mom?", I asked and sat down on the side of her bed.

Head on her pillow, she said she was going to be fine. It was just that this world can’t ever seem to manage to hold it’s angels for very long. Why do folks hate themselves so much, she wanted to know.

Well, I sure didn’t have an answer to that one.

My voice went all cold and I told her to rest and that I’d fix us hot dogs and Kraft’s macaroni and cheese for supper.

At that moment my Dad came through the door and stood like a giant with the light coming from behind him in a sharp slice of yellow. I couldn’t see his face but I knew he’d reached his limit otherwise he wouldn’t be there.

I stood up, ready to protect her.

He said "Your making a fool of yourself, woman."

She said, "Leave me Be".

He said, "I talked to Dr.Warren this morning. He told me if I thought you were a danger to yourself or others he could call the police and have them put you in the state hospital. It’s not hard to do."

My mother sat up in bed and put her face in her hands. I was shaking like a leaf.

"You think I’ve gone crazy," she said, in a kind of low cat’s growl.

"No M’am", his voice equally flat and twice as mean mean, "I think you’re making a fool out of yourself in front of your son."

She looked at me and I looked at the carpet. I didn’t think she was a fool but I was afraid to say.

"Alright", she said, "I’ll be down in a minute."

We went and sat down at the table while she served us meatloaf and green beans and mashed potatoes. After dinner, I walked to my room, closed the door and stood in the dark for a long time.

After her funeral the same lot of friends, neighbors and relations came over to the house. I just remember walking from room to room, nodding my head, telling people that I guessed I’d sell the house, move along soon enough and yes, of course, she was a saint, wasn’t she. All her excentricies were chocked up to strange times and a fanciful (and occasionaly torpid) imagination.

I found Vernon sitting on the back porch.

"What you gonna do now?" he asked.

"Sell the house. Get married. Fly to the moon".

"Why not head out west, like you were planning--"
"Nah. It was a stupid thing to want to do--"

"That ain’t much of a reason"

"No, Sir, it’s not".

"You’re staying in Texas then--"

"Yes sir, I believe that I will".

"Now, why was that again?"

"I don’t really know. I’ve just got a feeling--"

That summer I sat in our house listening to surf music and trying to figure out what a boy should do..

One afternoon some guy named Sloan called and offered me sixty-four thousand dollars for the ranch. Then I sold the house for another seventy-two thousand. A hundred and thrity six thousand dollars was a handy chunk of change in the mid sixties. But I didn’t want it.. I didn’t want the fruits of his labor. I didn’t want a jack fucking thing from him. I paid some bills, bought the house a few hundred rounds of drinks, wrote a forty thousand dollar check to the American Heart Association. Then I wrote checks to every charity that sent me their pamphlet. Before long, I was back down to eight thousand.

With that little pocket change, I bought a new truck and moved to Austin. Me and California were through.