Confessions of a Prairie Bitch (3 page)

The furious backpedaling began: “Oh, well, technically, yes. Of course, you’d have to be an adult, and, of course, it’s a major medical procedure; several operations, you know, very expensive.”

I was ecstatic. “Wow! That is so cool!”

I hardly think that was the response they expected, but it was cool. This strange thing they were describing with such discomfort was nothing short of a miracle. I knew I was living in what was quickly becoming an age of scientific wonder; I had just recently seen men walk on the surface of the moon, right there on TV in my own living room. And now they were telling me of yet another astounding scientific triumph. This was cause for celebration!

Of course, I didn’t really grasp the implications of Christine’s sex change. I also wasn’t clear about whether or not one could have multiple operations and just go back and forth, from gender to gender, as one needed. I thought that a person could then, by logical extension, have surgery to become
anything
: a monkey, a giraffe…a fire engine. But what I did get was the underlying principle: a person was no longer permanently defined by the circumstances of his or her birth. Biology was no longer destiny. I had no real desire to become male at that time, and so far, the female thing has really worked out for me. But all my life, I have known, deep in my heart, that if it didn’t, I knew my options. Because of this realization, I feel that I am, and have always been, a woman by choice.

As fabulous as this news was, I had no idea what I was supposed to do the next time I saw Christine. It seemed rude to ask. I knew she’d written a book; I figured I’d eventually just go get a copy and read it. But now I couldn’t help staring at her. I’m not sure what I was looking for. A seam running up the back? Bolts in the neck? A zipper? In my cartoon-addled mind, I thought perhaps it would be something like when Bugs Bunny just unzips his head and becomes something else. There were no signs. Whatever the medical technology at the time the procedure was performed in Denmark, they must have really been on to something, or the doctor was having a
very
good day. I’ve seen pictures of her over the years, and she really did look fabulous.

This is why I find it odd now, that with all the medical advances in the last forty years, there are still transsexuals who settle for less than top-drawer results. I swear, there’s no pride in workmanship anymore. When asked by a transsexual friend what I think of her new look, I am all too often forced to admit: “I knew Christine Jorgensen, and you, sir, are no Christine Jorgensen.”

CHAPTER THREE

KEEPING SECRETS

OLGA:
My grandma says you can tell what’s inside a person by the face they wear.

MARY:
I guess. I never thought of Nellie that way, I mean, being poor and all. It kind of makes me feel sorry for her…almost.

I
’m all for a change of scenery now and then; out with the old, in with the new. But when I was growing up, my parents barely let me unpack my stuffed animals before we were on to the next locale. I’m not really sure why we moved so much, but I think it had something to do with money. Being actors, our family income varied wildly from year to year. And being actors, we were cursed with a constant sense of misplaced optimism. If we came into a little extra money, my father would say, “Oh no, we can’t live
here
!” and we’d move somewhere much nicer and more expensive. And then, a year to two later, when the money ran out, and no jobs came in, we’d pack up and move to “something more practical.” We sometimes stayed as long as three years, sometimes less than one.

When I was born, my family lived in Queens, New York, in a two-bedroom in Kew Gardens. We moved when I was a year old to Eighty-third Street and East End Avenue in Manhattan. My dad got a job on Broadway in the show
Luther
with Albert Finney, so this apartment building was ritzier; it had a doorman. Two years later, we were at the Chateau in Los Angeles.

Obviously, all our apartments were rentals. My parents did not own a home until Auntie Marion left them hers when she died in 1985. They didn’t own a car until I was a teenager. When we first moved to L.A., their credit rating was so nonexistent they couldn’t even get a charge account at a department store. They had a friend use his card to buy us a TV and paid him back in cash installments.

Once we moved to L.A., the places we found to live were all deluxe, mind you. After the Chateau, we bounced around the Hollywood Hills and West Hollywood, but my father would not venture so much as “east of Fairfax” (let alone “east of La Brea”—
quelle horreur
!). We were the snobbiest bunch of broke people you ever met.

Still, my parents always wanted to be able to say their children lived in a real house, and they finally got their chance. At one point, when our income was particularly high, we moved out of the Chateau to a house literally across the street. Even though it was huge and had a yard full of trees, all my brother and I did was complain that it wasn’t the Chateau. He even got up every morning and walked across the street to use their pool (again, this was the ’60s, and he was an actor, so nobody stopped him). I pressed my nose against the window and sighed, “I used to live in a castle!” My parents missed the laundry service. After a few months of this nonsense, my father asked why in hell we were paying more rent just to carry on like this all day, and we packed up and happily moved back to the Chateau.

Sadly, we couldn’t stay there forever. We moved into the heart of West Hollywood, to Waring Avenue just off La Cienega Boulevard. It was another attempt at a “real house.” It was adorable, with a yard, hardwood floors, a big kitchen, and a breakfast nook. Unfortunately, it only had two bedrooms. My parents put me in one, my brother in the other, and they slept on the pullout sofa in the living room. It’s possible they could have afforded a house with more bedrooms, but it would have meant moving to a slightly cheaper neighborhood. And that was
never
going to happen. My father would have slept in the bathtub first. For him, it was “location, location, location.” He would rather have an eight-by-eight room in a luxury building than a five-room ranch house in the type of neighborhood he always referred to as a (sharp intake of breath) “bad address.”

I liked Waring Avenue. I had a good-sized room, and I loved that breakfast nook. There were lots of children in the neighborhood and things to do within walking distance, and I was given pretty much free rein to go where I wished. And back then we had Beverly Park. At La Cienega and Beverly, where the Beverly Center shopping mall sits now, was an amusement park, with roller coasters, a haunted house, the whole bit. Oh, and a fully functioning, active oil well. Well, the whole area was rich in oil, and you couldn’t very well expect them to cap it off because there was an amusement park full of children on the premises, could you? Environmental hazards were not as well understood by the general public then as they are now, so we all thought it was just great to ride the Ferris wheel and watch the pump go up and down, up and down, happily churning up oil and carcinogens all day.

So Dad’s hanging out with Liberace and trying to “pass,” Mom’s managed to successfully escape from traditional women’s work by becoming a cartoon, my brother is a successful (if somewhat miserable) brooding teen idol, and I’m a cute blond six-year-old. What could possibly go wrong?

Just about everything.

My parents went out quite a lot, so I was often left home with a baby-sitter. That should have been fine, except that my parents had some strange ideas about who was considered a reasonable choice as a baby-sitter. I encountered a long parade of actors, friends, acquaintances, and friends of friends. Some of them were amusingly eccentric, some had severe drug and alcohol issues, and some were actually certifiably insane. (I once took a count and realized that three out of four people who baby-sat me later wound up committed to a mental hospital. I think the ones who weren’t simply went undiagnosed.)

But all of them were preferable to my parents’ favorite (translation: cheapest and most available) baby-sitter, my brother. Why would any parent think that a teenage boy, who no longer attended regular school, had already been to a psychiatrist, and had been caught smoking, drinking, and trying drugs, would be a suitable baby-sitter for a six-year-old girl? I think they thought it would teach him responsibility.

The best explanation I can give for what happened next is this: he was really angry, and I was home. A lot of it’s a blur. I wish a whole lot more of it was. I know a lot of kids beat up their younger siblings (and, no, that’s not good for anybody either), but most of the time, they don’t break out the kitchen carving knives and demonstrate how they’re going to cut your throat if you tell anyone what they’re doing.

It wasn’t like I didn’t try to tell my parents my brother was abusing me. It was just hard to explain how low things had really sunk, and they didn’t want to believe anything like that was even possible. Stefan was famous, after all, and could therefore do no wrong in my parents’ eyes. I’d beg them not to leave me alone with him, and they’d say, “Don’t roughhouse with your sister!” and split. And the next thing I’d hear was: “Now you’re really going to get it…”

I soon learned to shut up. Besides, Stefan clearly had some kind of magical powers; grown-ups seemed to believe absolutely anything he told them, no matter how ludicrous, and everyone talked about how he was a genius. So when he spoke, I listened. Sometimes he didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Sometimes I’d question him; this was not a good idea. If I asked a question that he didn’t know the answer to, or was perhaps a bit too logical for his taste, he’d beat me up. I was amazed at how the adults didn’t seem to want to question him either. Did he beat them all up, too? In this environment, what happened next wasn’t really much of a surprise.

I was six years old, and I didn’t know what sex was or where babies came from. And frankly, I hadn’t asked. But the guy who insisted he knew everything wasn’t going to let that stop him. I had seen our two dogs, Rex and my brother’s ill-treated mutt, Pork Chop, romping in the yard and as dogs will do, occasionally attempting to mate. I had asked what they were doing, and why everyone was giggling so much about it. My brother took it upon himself to enlighten me…in the garage, with the door closed.

I was innocent, but not a moron. I demanded to know why his explanation would require me to disrobe and lie down. But his answer was the same he gave to most questions: “JUST DO IT!” Having no clue as to what would come next, I did. As weak as some of the “sexual abuse prevention” literature may be, if I had been told even as little as “Don’t let anyone touch you there,” things could have gone quite differently. But no one had ever said anything about my body belonging to me. And my brother always made it quite clear who he thought it belonged to.

I don’t remember pain. Or fear. I remember utter confusion. And a coldness, both physical and emotional. I was naked and flat on my back on a cold, filthy steamer trunk, in a dark, cold, dirty garage. Stefan explained what he was doing, but not why. And then, it was as if I wasn’t there. There was no pretense of affection, no emotion, no talking. I was an object he’d found to serve this odd purpose. He was on top of me, and it was as if he was all alone in the world.

Afterward, I tried as usual to question him as to exactly what the point of this activity had been. His explanation was vague, to say the least. I wasn’t sure if this now meant I was going to have a baby, give birth to a litter of puppies, or grow a second head. The only part I understood clearly was the very last thing he said: “Whatever you do, don’t tell anyone.
Or else
.”

The abuse became a regular occurrence; it was happening at least three times a week, sometimes every day. After several months of this, not surprisingly, I wanted to get out of the house. I asked my parents if I could move out and get my own place. They explained that six-year-olds did not have their own apartments. Besides, these things cost money. “How much?” was all I asked.

It was oddly my brother who explained that I needed a job and that the only job for kids that paid well enough to get an apartment was acting. Perfect! I already had a press clipping file and an audition tape from the supermarket. Well, sort of. The Arrow Market in West Hollywood was the first market to put in video security cameras. It was such an innovation, they didn’t try to hide it. You could watch the video monitor at the checkout line. So every time we went shopping, I marched into the cheese aisle and practiced my tap routine. I wasn’t very good, but the people at the checkout counter were very entertained nonetheless. I had turned theft prevention into art.

I soon joined the Arngrim family ritual—the audition process. Everyone in my family—in fact, everyone I knew—went on these things they called “auditions.” I liked them at first, because I enjoyed dressing up and making sure my hair was absolutely perfect—no small feat in my case, with my nearly waist-length, super-fine, fly-away Barbie doll hair. (I think they invented the No More Tears and No More Tangle hair products just for me.) But I didn’t care for the long car rides. I was then and still am prone to motion sickness and became famous for starting off auditions by brightly chirping, “I frew up in the car!”

At that age, auditions didn’t demand any acting, seldom even dialogue. I was just asked to smile, then turn, and smile. It was sort of like posing for a cheerful mug shot. I finally landed a national television commercial, a major gig in anyone’s book. It was for Hunt’s ketchup. It was a series of commercials featuring a whole bunch of kids. The premise was children trying to figure out “how they get those tomatoes into the bottle.” We were all given a sealed bottle of ketchup and a large tomato and told to do our worst. Some pushed, some tried to jam the tomato down the neck of the bottle. It was pretty funny.

So there I was on my first set, in an adorable white tennis outfit. No, I did not play tennis, but it was the ’60s, and those cute little tennis skirt and top sets were very popular. And against my pale skin and white-blond hair, it made for a striking look. I fiddled with that bottle and tomato in every way possible, squinting and biting my lip, finally pressing down on the tomato with the bottle. Small problem: my tomato was apparently just a little bit riper than the others. Finally, during one take—squish!—the tomato exploded. Juice, seeds, and tomato flesh flew everywhere, splattering all over my fabulous, brand-new white tennis outfit, all over my face, landing in my hair, in my eyes, everywhere. I froze with my juice-covered arms extended away from my body.

The director and all the adults stood frozen, too, stifling hysterical laughter. Finally, the director, a very nice woman, came up to me and said, “Can I get you anything, honey?” (By which I suppose she meant, did I want a towel?) To which I replied, in a very deep, un-six-year-old girl voice: “Yes. GET…THIS…GODDAMN TOMATO JUICE OFF OF ME!”

At that point, any attempt on anyone’s part to stifle laughter went right out the window. I think some of those crew members are still laughing. I wasn’t really mad. I was just appalled. Not to mention cold and wet. Later, I did thank the nice lady for wiping me off. But my reputation in Hollywood was off to a hell of a start.

For the next several years I led a double life. I did my best to behave normally at school and in public, while at home nothing was normal. My brother had decided that his experiment in the garage was a success and now insisted on repeating this activity as often as possible. New activities were introduced, usually with the aid of whatever pornographic magazine he was reading that week, and insurrection was punished swiftly and mercilessly. I still have some of those awful visual memories, like the time I almost made it to the front door, my hand slipping off the doorknob as I fell to the floor, and watching my fingernails scrape the hardwood floor, as I was dragged back by my feet.

I understand how people in these situations can develop multiple personalities. I sometimes wish I had. I learned a whole bunch of stuff nobody, particularly not a child, should learn. I learned how to pretend that hours, days, entire weeks had simply never taken place. I learned how not to cry, how not to show pain, and what to do to guarantee myself a few hours of peace and quiet. I learned how to pretend to be happy when I wasn’t. I learned to play dead. I learned how to lie. I’ve always been fascinated by what people are willing to do to survive, physically and mentally; how the human mind will warp, bend, twist, and adapt itself to even the most unbelievable situations if it thinks there’s a chance of survival. When I was a bit older, my friends used to ask me why I had so many weird books about people in horrible situations—stuff about wars, plagues, the Holocaust. It was because I was fascinated by how these people lived through such horrors and survived, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. I was looking for help in that department.