Brando_ Songs My Mother Taught Me Part 5

WHEN A Streetcar Named Desire A Streetcar Named Desire closed in 1949, after a run of two years, I spent three months in Europe, mostly in Paris, picking up a little French and having a wonderful time. I was one of the wild boys of Paris. I did everything, slept with a lot of women, had no sense of time and slept until two closed in 1949, after a run of two years, I spent three months in Europe, mostly in Paris, picking up a little French and having a wonderful time. I was one of the wild boys of Paris. I did everything, slept with a lot of women, had no sense of time and slept until two P.M P.M. every day. Anything that was imaginable, I did in Paris. When I returned to New York, most of my clothes and almost everything else I owned were gone. I'd always been generous with my friends and had given away a lot of the money I made, but if I didn't give it, sometimes they stole it. One night I awoke and looked up at the face of one of my closest friends. There was a table between us; on it was a box where I kept my money and his hands were in it. When I opened my eyes, he withdrew his hands, put them on his hips, said "Hi," and gave me the look of a jackal. He wasn't the only friend who took advantage of the fact that I didn't pay much attention to material things, and when I was in Paris some of these friends came to my apartment, fought over my clothes and stole everything in sight.

The success of Streetcar Streetcar meant I'd found a way to support myself in a fas.h.i.+on I liked, but it also skewed and shaped my life in ways that saddened me. Fame cuts two ways, I learned: it has at least as many disadvantages as it does advantages. It gives you certain comforts and power, and if you want to do a favor for a friend, your calls are answered. If you want to focus attention on a problem that bothers you, you may be listened to-something, incidentally, that I find ludicrous because why is a movie star's opinion valued more than that of any other citizen? I've had interviewers ask me questions about quantum physics and the s.e.x life of fruit flies as if I knew what I was talking about- meant I'd found a way to support myself in a fas.h.i.+on I liked, but it also skewed and shaped my life in ways that saddened me. Fame cuts two ways, I learned: it has at least as many disadvantages as it does advantages. It gives you certain comforts and power, and if you want to do a favor for a friend, your calls are answered. If you want to focus attention on a problem that bothers you, you may be listened to-something, incidentally, that I find ludicrous because why is a movie star's opinion valued more than that of any other citizen? I've had interviewers ask me questions about quantum physics and the s.e.x life of fruit flies as if I knew what I was talking about-and I've answered the questions! It doesn't matter what the question is; people listen to you. A lot of reporters have come to see me after having already written their articles in their heads; they expect Marlon Brando to be eccentric, and so they say to themselves, I'll ask him a silly question and he'll answer it. It doesn't matter what the question is; people listen to you. A lot of reporters have come to see me after having already written their articles in their heads; they expect Marlon Brando to be eccentric, and so they say to themselves, I'll ask him a silly question and he'll answer it.

The power and influence of a movie star is curious: I didn't ask for it or take it; people gave gave it to me. Simply because you're a movie star, people empower you with special rights and privileges. Fame and its effects on people are a fairly new phenomenon; until a couple of centuries ago, unless they were royalty or a religious prophet whose image was polished by their court or disciples who produced Scripture and Holy Writ, people were seldom famous beyond their own villages. Most people couldn't read, and what knowledge they had was pa.s.sed on via word of mouth. Then along came better schools, newspapers, magazines, the dime novel, radio, movies and television, and fame became an instant global commodity. It took 1,500 years for Buddhism to travel up the Silk Road and establish itself in China; it took only two weeks for the Twist to go from the Peppermint Lounge to Tahiti. A century and a half ago, many Americans didn't know who they had elected president until weeks after an election because it took that long for news to reach the hinterlands. Now when something happens in Bombay, people from Green Bay to Greenland know it instantly; a face is recognized around the world and people who have never accomplished anything become professional celebrities. it to me. Simply because you're a movie star, people empower you with special rights and privileges. Fame and its effects on people are a fairly new phenomenon; until a couple of centuries ago, unless they were royalty or a religious prophet whose image was polished by their court or disciples who produced Scripture and Holy Writ, people were seldom famous beyond their own villages. Most people couldn't read, and what knowledge they had was pa.s.sed on via word of mouth. Then along came better schools, newspapers, magazines, the dime novel, radio, movies and television, and fame became an instant global commodity. It took 1,500 years for Buddhism to travel up the Silk Road and establish itself in China; it took only two weeks for the Twist to go from the Peppermint Lounge to Tahiti. A century and a half ago, many Americans didn't know who they had elected president until weeks after an election because it took that long for news to reach the hinterlands. Now when something happens in Bombay, people from Green Bay to Greenland know it instantly; a face is recognized around the world and people who have never accomplished anything become professional celebrities.

A lot of people who don't have it l.u.s.t after fame and find it impossible to imagine that someone else wouldn't be interested in being famous; they can't envisage anyone turning his back on fame and all its appurtenances. But fame has been the bane of my life, and I would have gladly given it up. Once I was famous, I was never able to be Bud Brando of Libertyville, Illinois, again. One of my consistent objections to my way of making a living has been that I have been forced to live a false life, and all the people I know, with the exception of a handful, have been affected by my fame. To one degree or another everybody is affected by it, consciously or unconsciously. People don't relate to you as the person you are, but to a myth they believe you are, and the myth is always wrong. You are scorned or loved for mythic reasons that, once given a life, like zombies that stalk you from the grave-or newspaper-morgue files-live forever. Even today I meet people who think of me automatically as a tough, insensitive, coa.r.s.e guy named Stanley Kowalski. They can't help it, but it is troubling. We are all voyeurs to one degree or another, including me, but with fame comes the predatory prowl of a carrion press that has an insatiable appet.i.te for salaciousness and abhors being denied access to anyone, from pimps to presidents (a journey that becomes shorter every year), and, confused and resentful because it can't get what it wants, resorts to inventing stories about you because it is part of a culture whose most pressing moral imperative is that anything is acceptable if it makes money.

I'm not an innocent: I do things for money, too. I've made stupid movies because I wanted the money. I'm writing this book for money because Harry Evans of Random House offered it to me. He said that if his company published a book about a movie star, the profits would enable him to publish books by talented unpublished authors that might not make money. At least he was honest, although I thought it was odd for him to admit that he published trashy books so that he could issue those that had real value. In his own way, Harry is a hooker just like me, looking for a way to make money any way he can. I'm only a hooker who has been working the other side of the street. A little self-hatred? I think not, but I admit to perhaps a touch of vanity in being able to see it clearly and confess it.

Alice Marchak, my secretary for over thirty years, once said she thought I had a kind of split personality: one side of me enjoys the recognition and power of being a movie star while the other side hates the part of me that enjoys it. I doubt this, but it's impossible to understand oneself. There are yogis and swamis who have lived close to their unconscious, who have a sense of their own character and know themselves deeply, but most people cannot allow themselves to see what they actually are because everybody has a mythological sense of himself. The person Alice sees is not the person somebody else would see. Wally c.o.x, who was like my brother, would not see me that way. Everyone we know in our lives views us through a slightly different prism. These are Alice's impressions, and they are right in respect to the lens through which she looks at me. Everything is perception. There is no such thing as being able to judge anything objectively. It is a pose that scientists have foisted upon the world.

Other than the money, have I enjoyed being a movie star? I don't think so, regardless of Alice's opinion. I have always examined myself with precision and determination. Ever since I was young, I have attempted to find out what was unbalanced about myself. I've had to take hard looks at my vanities and sullied ambitions in order to find solutions to a pattern of behavior that seems difficult to change. But I don't see anything in my career, or in the manner in which I pursue life, that indicates I have ever been in love with the accolades of fame.

No, I don't think I have ever liked being a movie star. I think of myself as one of a race apart from other actors. Not that I condemn them or what they have done; I simply don't want to be considered among them. When I was thirty, I tried to express some of my feelings in a letter to a young woman who'd sent me an adoring letter about The Wild One: The Wild One: "Dear Cleola...thanks for your kind letter. It really was very flattering. You shouldn't make such a fuss about me, though, because I am simply a human being just like you. I am happy and sad, quiet and gay-in short, nothing more or less than one of some four billion human animals on the earth. Don't make something out of me that I am not." "Dear Cleola...thanks for your kind letter. It really was very flattering. You shouldn't make such a fuss about me, though, because I am simply a human being just like you. I am happy and sad, quiet and gay-in short, nothing more or less than one of some four billion human animals on the earth. Don't make something out of me that I am not."

But I've learned that no matter what I say or do, people mythologize me. The greatest change that success has brought me has nothing to do with my concept of myself or my reaction to fame, but of other other people's reactions to it. I haven't changed. I have never forgotten my life in Libertyville when I felt unwanted, and my formative years when I didn't have the advantages I do now. I have always been suspicious of success, its pitfalls and how it can undo you. people's reactions to it. I haven't changed. I have never forgotten my life in Libertyville when I felt unwanted, and my formative years when I didn't have the advantages I do now. I have always been suspicious of success, its pitfalls and how it can undo you.

All in all, I think it would have been better not to have been famous because my entire adult life's experience, my view of life, and the lives and outlook of my friends and family, have been colored and distorted by it. If Janice Mars was right in believing that intimacy with a famous friend can victimize those around him, there is also a flip side: people without fame try to attach themselves to it, making it difficult to trust anyone. Ever since I became famous, it's been difficult for me to judge if a potential friend was attracted to me or to my fame and to the myths about me. It is the first thing I notice. And even though they may say it doesn't, my fame affects them. I've given jobs to friends, then discovered they were using me, or worse, stealing from me. I have also been disappointed when former friends like Carlo Fiore, having led empty lives and with nothing else to sell, have chosen to publish intimate, private accounts about our friends.h.i.+p. But I suppose they were simply trying to pay their bills and survive.

Once you are famous, everything and everybody changes. Even my father. After A Streetcar Named Desire A Streetcar Named Desire, he started doing something that really annoyed me: he began calling me Marlon. Until then he'd always called me Bud or Buddy like everyone else in the family. Ever since then, it has annoyed me deeply whenever somebody who once called me Bud begins calling me Marlon or somebody who called me Marlon begins calling me Bud.

The worst thing that can happen when someone becomes famous is for him to believe the myths about himself-and that, I have the conceit to say, I have never done. Still, I am stung by the realization that I am covered with the same muck as some of the people I have criticized because fame thrives in the manure of the success of which I allowed myself to become a part. Though I am not directly responsible, I could have chosen a less putrid trail to walk, but without a high school education, and with no sense that becoming famous would put me next to a sewage plant, I was obliged to develop indifference to the consequences.

I never planned or aspired or had any ambition to become a movie star. It just happened. I never felt a pa.s.sion to act for any other reason than to supply myself with the needs of life. When it happened, I was grateful to find something at which I could make a living. I didn't have anything better to do, acting didn't grate on me, and after a while I could do it without expending a lot of effort. Later, when it became less enjoyable, it was still the best way I knew to make a lot of money in a short time. To me, acting has always been only a means to an end, a source of money for which I didn't have to work very hard. The hours are short, the pay good, and when you're done, you're as free as a bird. Acting is like playing house. I don't look down on it, but I have always been much more interested in other aspects of life. Sometimes the themes of plays and movies I have been in have been interesting, but the acting itself doesn't really absorb me. It has advantages over some jobs. I wouldn't have wanted to spend my life as a real estate salesman or lawyer. Any nine-to-five job I don't think I could bear. I don't do well under circ.u.mstances in which I have to be highly disciplined and responsible to other people. But if a studio offered to pay me as much to sweep the floor as it did to act, I'd sweep the floor. Better yet, I would just as soon someone drove up to my house once a week, handed me some money and said, "Good morning, Marlon, how you doing?"

"Just fine, thank you. See you next week when you bring more money."

After I returned from Paris, there were a lot of proposals for new plays and movies, and I accepted one of them-a one-picture deal, not a seven-year studio contract. It was The Men The Men, a story about a group of paraplegic and quadriplegic soldiers in a California Veterans Hospital after World War II. The producer was Stanley Kramer, and the director was Fred Zinnemann. The script by Carl Foreman was a good one. I played a young army lieutenant, Ken Wilocek, whose spine had been smashed by a German sniper's bullet in the closing days of the war. I had no idea what it was like to be confined to a wheelchair or to spend the rest of my life in one, so I asked to be admitted to the Birmingham Veterans Hospital in southern California as a paralyzed veteran with a background similar to Ken Wilocek's. A few patients and members of the staff were informed, but most of the patients didn't know I was an actor, and because it was my first movie, no one recognized me. For three weeks I tried to do everything the patients did and learn what their lives were like. The first thing I discovered was that they hated pity. Once we went out for dinner to an Italian restaurant on Ventura Boulevard, all of us in our wheelchairs, and a woman came over and said to us, "I'm so proud of you, boys. I know what you've done for your country."

She kept repeating herself, going on and on while the guys became increasingly uncomfortable. They didn't want her pity. They weren't interested in what she had to say; the only thing they wanted to do was enjoy their night out.

"I know you boys will be able to walk someday. You just have to work hard and you'll do it. I have faith in G.o.d that he will help you and you'll be all right. You've got to believe because you are with the Lord and the Lord is with you and will help you."

They were really getting sick of her, so I said, "You know, ma'am, I believe you. I believe in the Lord."

"Well," she said, "I want want you to believe. You should believe it, soldier, because I know that with the Lord's work you can recover." you to believe. You should believe it, soldier, because I know that with the Lord's work you can recover."

I said, "I do do believe! I believe! I do do believe! I feel the Lord has come right into this room and into my body. The Lord is in my body! I feel it..." believe! I feel the Lord has come right into this room and into my body. The Lord is in my body! I feel it..."

I got up and started tap dancing, then ran around the restaurant and sprinted out the door shouting, "Hallelujah!" "Hallelujah!"

The guys in their wheelchairs cracked up. Unfortunately they didn't get many laughs. They were young, virile men-some of them seventeen- or eighteen-year-old boys with good brains who were trapped in inoperative bodies and would never be able to move their arms or legs or make love. Many fought like tigers to make the most of their broken bodies; some put paintbrushes in their teeth and created beautiful paintings. But it was excruciatingly difficult; many were upbeat and determined to get on with their lives, while others gave up. Perhaps the saddest aspect of these men was that they believed they had let their wives down; in most cases, they had lost their capacity for s.e.xual performance, and it ate at them. Some told me that the emotional pain of knowing that their wives did not want to be dishonest and disloyal, yet realizing that eventually they would succ.u.mb to temptation, was worse. Some of the friends I made at Birmingham killed themselves, unable to take it anymore.

I don't know whether making The Men The Men had anything to do with it, but when the army tried to draft me for the Korean War, I wasn't interested. During World War II I'd been ready, but by 1950 I was more savvy about the world-or so I thought. I had read enough to become more skeptical about what my government did in my name. had anything to do with it, but when the army tried to draft me for the Korean War, I wasn't interested. During World War II I'd been ready, but by 1950 I was more savvy about the world-or so I thought. I had read enough to become more skeptical about what my government did in my name.

Notified that my draft status had been changed from 4-F to 1-A, I went to the induction center in New York. I'd had an operation on the knee I injured at Shattuck, and was no longer lame enough to be excluded from the draft. I was given a questionnaire and instructed to fill it out.

Race?

"Human," I wrote.

Color?

"Seasonal-oyster white to beige."

When an army doctor asked me if I knew of any reasons why I shouldn't be inducted into the armed services, I answered, "I'm psychoneurotic."

He referred me to a psychiatrist, who asked, "Why do you think you are psychoneurotic and unsuitable for military service?"

"I had a very bad history in military school," I answered, "I don't respond well to authority and I got kicked out. Besides, I have emotional problems."

Skeptically the doctor asked if I was being treated for any psychological problems, and I told him that I was seeing Dr. Bela Mittelman.

He gave me a funny look and said, "Who?"

"Bela Mittelman."

"Bela Mittelman! For Chrissake, where is he?"

I said he had an office down the street about two blocks away.

"I'll be G.o.dd.a.m.ned," he said. They were old friends. Then he scribbled on my induction papers: "Not suited for military service."

We chatted a few more minutes, and then as I was going out the door, he gave me his card and said, "Tell Bela to call me."

I answered, "He's in the book, but I'll tell him..."

And that was why I didn't go to Korea.

22.

MY SECOND MOTION picture was picture was A Streetcar Named Desire A Streetcar Named Desire. Although Hollywood censors sapped Tennessee's story of some of its sting, I thought it was better than the play. Vivien Leigh, who had played Blanche in the London stage production, was brought over from England for the movie, and I've always thought it was perfect casting. In many ways she was was Blanche. She was memorably beautiful, one of the great beauties of the screen, but she was also vulnerable, and her own life had been very much like that of Tennessee's wounded b.u.t.terfly. It had paralleled Blanche's in several ways, especially when her mind began to wobble and her sense of self became vague. Like Blanche, she slept with almost everybody and was beginning to dissolve mentally and to fray at the ends physically. I might have given her a tumble if it hadn't been for Larry Olivier. I'm sure he knew she was playing around, but like a lot of husbands I've known, he pretended not to see it, and I liked him too much to invade his chicken coop. Blanche. She was memorably beautiful, one of the great beauties of the screen, but she was also vulnerable, and her own life had been very much like that of Tennessee's wounded b.u.t.terfly. It had paralleled Blanche's in several ways, especially when her mind began to wobble and her sense of self became vague. Like Blanche, she slept with almost everybody and was beginning to dissolve mentally and to fray at the ends physically. I might have given her a tumble if it hadn't been for Larry Olivier. I'm sure he knew she was playing around, but like a lot of husbands I've known, he pretended not to see it, and I liked him too much to invade his chicken coop.

Making the movie reinforced my decision not to take on another Broadway play. I've heard it said that I sold out to Hollywood. In a way it's true, but I knew exactly what I was doing. I've never had any respect for Hollywood. It stands for avarice, phoniness, greed, cra.s.sness and bad taste, but when you act in a movie, you only have to work three months a year, then you can do as you please for the rest.

Although I decided not to make another long-term commitment to the stage, I was glad to get back to New York after the filming of Streetcar Streetcar. I lived in an apartment at Sixth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street near Carnegie Hall and dropped in from time to time at the Actors Studio to meet girls. One of them was Marilyn Monroe, who was being exploited by Lee Strasberg. I had first met her briefly shortly after the war and b.u.mped into her again-literally-at a party in New York. While the other people at the party drank and danced, she sat by herself almost unnoticed in a corner, playing the piano. I was talking to someone with a drink in my hand, having a good time, when someone tapped me on the shoulder; I spun around quickly and hit her with a sharp elbow to the head. It was a solid knock and I knew it must have hurt.

"Oh, my G.o.d," I said, "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. It was an accident."

Marilyn looked me in the face and said, "There are no accidents."

She meant it to be funny and I laughed. I sat down beside her and said, "Let me show you how to play a piano. You can't play worth a d.a.m.n."

I did my best for a few bars; then we chatted, and thereafter I called her from time to time. Finally one night I phoned her and said, "I want to come over and see you right now, and if you can't give me a good reason why I shouldn't-maybe you just don't want me to-tell me now."

She invited me over, and it wasn't long before every soldier's dream came true.

Marilyn was a sensitive, misunderstood person, much more perceptive than was generally a.s.sumed. She had been beaten down, but had a strong emotional intelligence-a keen intuition for the feelings of others, the most refined type of intelligence. After that first visit, we had an affair and saw each other intermittently until she died in 1962. She often called me and we would talk for hours, sometimes about how she was beginning to realize that Strasberg and other people were trying to use her. She was becoming a much healthier person emotionally. The last time we spoke was two or three days before she died. She called from her home in Los Angeles and invited me to come over for dinner that night. I said I had already made plans for the evening and couldn't, but I promised to call the following week to set a date for dinner. She said, "Fine," and that was it. It's been speculated that she had a secret rendezvous with Robert Kennedy that week and was distraught because he wanted to end an affair between them. But she didn't seem depressed to me, and I don't think that if she was sleeping with him at the time she would have invited me over for dinner.

I'm pretty good at reading people's moods and perceiving their feelings, and with Marilyn I didn't sense any depression or clue of impending self-destruction during her call. That's why I'm sure she didn't commit suicide. If someone is terminally depressed, no matter how clever they may be or how expertly they try to conceal it, they will always give themselves away. I've always had an unquenchable curiosity about people, and I believe I would have sensed something was wrong if thoughts of suicide were anywhere near the surface of Marilyn's mind. I would have known it. Maybe she died because of an accidental drug overdose, but I have always believed that she was murdered.

Another friend from that era who died sadly and prematurely was Montgomery Clift. We were both from Omaha and broke into acting about the same time. We had the same agent, Edie Van Cleve, and, although he was four years older than me, we were sometimes described as rivals for the same parts. There may have been a rivalry between us-in those days I was a compet.i.tive young man determined to be the best and he was a very good actor-but I don't remember ever feeling that way about him. In my memory he was simply a friend with a tragic destiny.

We met while I was in Truckline Cafe Truckline Cafe. By then Monty had been in several plays, and I was curious about how good he was and went to see him in The Searching Wind The Searching Wind. He was was good, and after the play I introduced myself and we went out for dinner. Since we shared a lot of similar experiences, there was a lot to talk about and we became friends, though not close ones. There was a quality about Monty that was very endearing; besides a great deal of charm, he had a powerful emotional intensity, and, like me, he was troubled, something I empathized with. But what troubled him wasn't evident. Later on, I went out with a girl he had dated, and she said she thought he might be a bis.e.xual or a h.o.m.os.e.xual, but I found it hard to believe. I never asked him and never suspected it, but if he was a h.o.m.os.e.xual, I imagine he was torn asunder by it. Whatever the reason, he was a tortured man, and to deaden his pain he began drinking chloral hydrate and then became an alcoholic. good, and after the play I introduced myself and we went out for dinner. Since we shared a lot of similar experiences, there was a lot to talk about and we became friends, though not close ones. There was a quality about Monty that was very endearing; besides a great deal of charm, he had a powerful emotional intensity, and, like me, he was troubled, something I empathized with. But what troubled him wasn't evident. Later on, I went out with a girl he had dated, and she said she thought he might be a bis.e.xual or a h.o.m.os.e.xual, but I found it hard to believe. I never asked him and never suspected it, but if he was a h.o.m.os.e.xual, I imagine he was torn asunder by it. Whatever the reason, he was a tortured man, and to deaden his pain he began drinking chloral hydrate and then became an alcoholic.

At the time I didn't understand what was happening or why Monty wanted to destroy himself, but it was tragic to watch. By 1957, when I was in The Young Lions The Young Lions, n.o.body wanted to hire him, but I encouraged the producers to give him a job. It had been hard for him to find work after being injured in a bad car wreck not far from my house, and his upper lip was paralyzed. He'd had plastic surgery, but the doctors hadn't been able to repair the damage completely. He could smile with his eyes, but his upper lip wouldn't move, giving him a twisted, confused look. He had always taken great pride in his looks, and he was self-conscious about the injury.

When Monty showed up in Paris for The Young Lions The Young Lions, he was consuming more chloral hydrate and alcohol than ever. His face was gray and gaunt, and he had lost a lot of weight. I saw he was on the trajectory to personal destruction and talked to him frankly, opening myself completely to him; I told him about my mother's drinking and my experiences with therapy and said, "Monty, there's awful anguish ahead for you if you don't get hold of yourself. You've got to get some help. You can't take refuge in chemicals, because that's a wall you can't ever climb. You can't get around it, you can't drive through it. You're just gonna die sitting up huddled in front of that wall."

I gave him the name of a therapist I thought might be able to help him, encouraged him to join Alcoholics Anonymous and talked to him for hours trying to persuade him to stop taking dope and alcohol. But when we shot the picture, he often slurred his lines. I tried to sh.o.r.e him up and did the best I could to get him through the picture, but afterward his descent continued until he died in 1966 at the age of forty-six.

I do not know for a fact that Monty was a h.o.m.os.e.xual. Afterward, some people told me he was, but I have heard so many lies told about myself that I no longer believe what people say about others. I do know he carried around a heavy emotional burden and never learned how to bear it.

23.

WHEN I LIVED in the apartment at Fifty-seventh Street and Sixth Avenue, someone began making anonymous telephone calls to me that always followed the same pattern: the phone would ring, I would pick it up and say "h.e.l.lo," there would be silence and then the caller would hang up. Then a few minutes later, the phone would ring again and the caller would listen silently while I kept repeating, "Who is this? Why don't you say something? Look, I think it would be advisable for you to see a psychiatrist at your earliest convenience." in the apartment at Fifty-seventh Street and Sixth Avenue, someone began making anonymous telephone calls to me that always followed the same pattern: the phone would ring, I would pick it up and say "h.e.l.lo," there would be silence and then the caller would hang up. Then a few minutes later, the phone would ring again and the caller would listen silently while I kept repeating, "Who is this? Why don't you say something? Look, I think it would be advisable for you to see a psychiatrist at your earliest convenience."

After about three months, the caller, a woman, spoke for the first time in frightened, tremulous low tones. I asked her who she was and why she kept calling me, and finally wheedled some answers out of her; she said she had been fixated on me for years, ever since A Streetcar Named Desire A Streetcar Named Desire was on Broadway. I asked her what she did for a living and she said that she was a hold-up artist-that is, she masterminded robberies, mostly of liquor stores; she planned the "jobs," as she put it, while a deaf-and-dumb friend who drove a motorcycle did the dirty work. After a three-hour conversation, she revealed that for months she and this friend had been making plans to kidnap me and take me to Long Island, where she was going to imprison and cannibalize me. was on Broadway. I asked her what she did for a living and she said that she was a hold-up artist-that is, she masterminded robberies, mostly of liquor stores; she planned the "jobs," as she put it, while a deaf-and-dumb friend who drove a motorcycle did the dirty work. After a three-hour conversation, she revealed that for months she and this friend had been making plans to kidnap me and take me to Long Island, where she was going to imprison and cannibalize me.

I didn't know if she was crazy or serious, but realized that whether it was fact or fantasy, I was dealing with a very disturbed mind. I finally decided that she was deadly serious; she explained in great detail how she was going to kidnap me, and she clearly had an intimate knowledge of my life and routine. She said that she had made her deaf-and-dumb friend tear down a billboard of A Streetcar Named Desire A Streetcar Named Desire, and had papered her entire bedroom with it-walls, ceiling and floor. Sometimes she locked herself in her room without food or water and spent days just looking at the pictures, she said; she also kept a picture of me beneath her pillow and talked to it. After she captured me, she said she was going to eat me because she loved me.

I decided to meet this woman face-to-face. I was interested to find out why anyone could develop such a fixation, the depth of her disorder and the seriousness of her imbalance. I invited her to my apartment, and when she arrived I opened the door, with the chain still in place, and looked past her to see if her deaf friend was hiding behind her. I told her to stick her hands through the opening, held them with one hand, and reached out and frisked her with the other to make sure she didn't have a gun. She didn't, but when I unbolted the chain I half-expected her friend to appear out of nowhere and grab me.

After she entered the room, she sat on a small ottoman and her first words to me were, "I bet you could beat up anybody."

"n.o.body can beat up anybody," anybody," I said. "There's always somebody who can beat you up, and he's probably just around the corner at the next tavern." I said. "There's always somebody who can beat you up, and he's probably just around the corner at the next tavern."

She argued with me. "Oh, no, no, no. You can beat anybody up. Don't say you can't, because I know you can."

"Well, all right," I said, "I can beat anybody up. Now what?"

"Do you need any money?"

"No," I said.

"Because if you do, I have lots." She pulled a wad of hundred-dollar bills out of her purse that would have choked a rhino-at least the top bills were hundreds-and offered them to me.

"I really don't need any money."

As she sat there, I tried to size her up. She was in her early twenties and wearing a jacket with a fringe on it; she was possibly Italian, big-busted and attractive. She said her name was Maria, and I asked her more questions.

She answered a few, then interrupted me. "I want to ask you you a question. You won't be mad at me if I ask you something, will you?" a question. You won't be mad at me if I ask you something, will you?"

"No, of course not."

"Are you sure you won't be mad?"

I said: "I promise you I won't be mad."

She said: "Can I do something?"

"Well, what is it?"

"May I wash your feet?"

I did about a twelve count after the question, then said, "You want to wash my feet?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"It's just something I want to do. I don't know why."

I found myself saying, "Yes."

She went into the kitchen, filled a big basin with warm water and then began was.h.i.+ng my feet. I was surprised, a little frightened and unfortunately a little excited, but curious at the same time. I wanted to see how far she'd go. There is nothing more seductive than understanding the dynamics of the human mind and its odd ways.

Maria washed my feet slowly, deliberately, reverentially, and then dried them lovingly with her hair. Unfortunately it felt wonderful. Of course I understood what was going on; she was fantasizing that I was Jesus and that she was Mary Magdalene. As I looked down at her, the carnal aspect of my personality began to take over, and when she sat on my bed, it overwhelmed anything that was reasonable, rational, moral or decent in me. Without antic.i.p.ating it, I put my hands on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I realized I was going over the falls in a barrel. The first thing I knew I was groping with her on the bed, and she was terrified because she was very pa.s.sionate, and in the grip of her delusion must have thought she was being seduced by Jesus Christ.

When it pa.s.ses a certain point, the p.e.n.i.s has its own agenda that has nothing to do with you, especially in those days when I was young, uncontrolled, pa.s.sionate and determined. One is led around by one's l.u.s.t and a lot of one's decisions are not made by one's brain. When I penetrated Maria, she said, "I'm dying, I'm dying..."

"No, you're not," I said. "You're living. This is the first time you've ever come to life." I realized she was having an o.r.g.a.s.m, and I rea.s.sured her that it was all right. She was, I had discovered, a virgin.

Afterward I felt remorse and asked myself how I could have done this; I had just seduced a girl who thought I was Jesus and who wanted to eat my body. I told her, "I think you need help."

I suggested the name of a psychiatrist, and after a lot of salesmans.h.i.+p persuaded her to go see him. A week or two later, I called him because I knew I was involved in something that could be very dangerous.

"There's nothing I can do for her," he said. "She's fixated on you, and the only reason she came to see me was because you instructed her to. She doesn't want help. She wants you." He went on to say that her disturbances were of such a character that he couldn't treat her. I asked him if he thought she was serious about kidnapping me or was potentially dangerous in other ways. He said he couldn't be sure, but that in her obsessive state of mind anything was possible, so I should be careful. I decided never to see her again, but was fascinated by her, though no longer in a s.e.xual way, because she was wounded and likable and I felt compa.s.sion for her. Still, I realized I had to break the tie between us and I tried hard. For months she called, saying she wanted to see me, and I refused, trying to be evasive and kind at the same time. Then she began sending food and expensive presents to my apartment and imploring me to go to bed with her again. She would come to the apartment and pound on the door and I wouldn't answer.

Six months later I decided to employ a new tactic. "Listen," I told her gruffly when Maria called the next time, "I don't want you ever to call me ever again. You're making a mess out of your own life and you're boring the h.e.l.l out of me. I don't want you in my life. I'll never want you. I never want to see your face again."

I felt bad saying this. She cried, screamed and pleaded with me: "Don't say that, please don't say that..."

She was calling from a telephone booth at a drugstore not far from my apartment. This I learned because one of my friends, who knew the story and had seen her before, happened to be in the store, heard her screaming at me and saw her smash her fists into the gla.s.s of the booth, breaking it and cutting her wrists until blood was dripping all over her. Then she went out into the fifteen-degree night and vanished. When he called to tell me what he'd seen, I had already called her home and spoken to her brother, who said her family knew all about her fixation on me but hadn't been able to help her. He said Maria had seven locks on her bedroom door, had been spending more and more time in her room staring at my pictures without eating, and that other members of the family were intimidated by her.