My Dark Places

I started stuttering the next morning. I was convincing from the first tangled syllable on. I was a Method actor tapping into real-life resources.

My platoon sergeant bought the act. I was a stage ham—but not quite a scenery chewer. I wrote the sergeant a note and expressed grave concern for my father. The sergeant called him and told me, “He don’t sound good.”

I was assigned to a unit: Company A, 2nd Battalion, 5th Training Brigade. I was tagged as a probable nut case my first day in uniform. The company commander heard my tortured speech and said I was unfit for this man’s army.

Real fear shaped my performance. An innate dramatic sense honed it. I could have snapped for real in a hot second. My long twitchy body was a great actor’s tool.

I began basic training. I endured two days of marching and general army jive. My fellow trainees shined me on—I was a stuttering geek from Mars.

The company commander called me into his office. He said the Red Cross was flying me home for two weeks. My father just had another stroke.

The old man looked surprisingly good. He was sharing a room with another stroke victim.

The guy told me all the nurses were in awe of my dad’s jumbo whanger. They giggled about it and scoped it out while he was sleeping.

I visited my father every day for two weeks running. I told him I was coming home to take care of him. I meant it. The real outside world scared me back to loving him.

My furlough was a blast. I festooned my uniform with war surplus insignia and bopped around L.A. like I was King Shit. I wore paratrooper’s wings, the combat infantry badge and four rows of campaign ribbons. I was the most self-decorated buck private in military history.

I flew back to Fort Polk late in May. I resumed my stuttering act and ran it by an army psychiatrist. He recommended me for immediate discharge. His report cited my “overdependence on supportive figures,” “poor performance in stressful situations” and “marked unsuitability for military service.”

My discharge was approved. The paperwork would take a month to process.

I did it. I fooled them and duped them and made them believe me.

The Red Cross called a few days later. My father just had another stroke.

I saw him one last time. The Red Cross got me back right before he died.

He was emaciated. He had tubes in his nose and his arms. He was stuck full of holes and smeared with red disinfectant.

I held his right hand to the bed rail and told him he’d be fine. His last discernible words were, “Try to pick up every waitress who serves you.”

A nurse hustled me into a waiting room. A doctor walked in a few minutes later and told me my father was dead.

It was June 4, 1965. He outlived my mother by less than seven years.

I walked over to Wilshire and caught a bus back to my motel. I forced myself to cry—just like I did with the redhead.

10

The army cut me loose in July. I got a general discharge “Under Honorable Conditions.” I was free, white and 17. I was draft-exempt just as Vietnam started to percolate.

My fellow trainees were headed for advanced infantry training and probable Vietnam duty. I dodged their bullet with Method-actor aplomb. I spent my last month at Fort Polk wolfing down crime novels. I stuttered and lurked around the Company A mess hall. I scammed the entire U.S. Army.

I flew back to L.A. and beelined to the old neighborhood. I found a one-room pad at Beverly and Wilton. The army sent me home with five hundred dollars. I forged my father’s name to his last three Social Security checks and cashed them at a liquor store. My bankroll increased to a grand.

Aunt Leoda promised to shoot me a C-note a month. She warned me that my insurance money wouldn’t last forever. She signed me up for Social Security and VA benefits—surviving-child stipends that would terminate on my 18th birthday. She urged me to go back to school. Full-time students could collect the coin up to age 21.

She was glad my father was dead. It probably assuaged her grief for my mother.

School was for geeks and spastics. My motto was “Live Free or Die.”

The dog was kenneled up. My old apartment was locked and boarded. The landlord had seized my father’s belongings in lieu of back rent. My new crib was great. It featured a bathroom, tiny kitchenette and 12’ x 8’ living room with a Murphy bed. I papered the walls with right-wing bumper stickers and Playmate of the Month foldouts.

I strutted around in my uniform for a week. I stood over my father’s grave and flaunted my army greens replete with unearned regalia. I boosted a new wardrobe from Silverwoods and Desmonds’. It was pure Hancock Park: madras shirts, crew-neck sweaters, thin-wale cord pants.

L.A. looked bright and beautiful. I knew I’d pursue some kind of swinging fucking destiny right here in my own hometown.

I stuck my roll in the bank and looked for work. I got a job passing out handbills and quit from boredom one week later. I got a busboy job at L.A.’s flagship Sizzler steakhouse and got fired for dropping shitloads of dishes. I got a kitchen job at a Kentucky Fried Chicken joint and got fired for picking my nose in front of customers.

I ran through three jobs in two weeks. I shrugged my failures off and opted for a work-free summer.