Whoa whoa whoaaa—I am a woman in love! And I’m talking to you. I played Barbara Streisand in my head as I watched the game —You know I know how you feel… a player step-ran to launch for the ball — to realize the attempt was futile. It’s a riiiiiiight, she wails. The racket slid down his grip. On the court, you can flip out, huff and puff, lose your composure, and roar with a shaking fist. Drama. We are capable of expressing ourselves largely, in movement and song, we have range, but in which direction? Ah, people I spoke to had trouble there, though we know anything is possible. Dr. J could dash towards the IRS to the same soundtrack… ready to save a man in a white mink? Imagine, her pushing some door open at the IRS? It’s a riiiiight. It’s all in the same universe of intensity. But, Dr. J, was a strange one indeed. I agree. Unusual direction. I guess.
The ball bounced off the fence.
We were facing each other off the courtside table at 1 and 5 o’clock.
“And I started living with you,” I asked, “just like that?”
Her sandals hit the ground. She brought her fingers to my face and snapped them, so I could see the reality of it up close. “Just like that,” she fell back into her chair and crossed her arms, looking off and shaking her head in regret, hatred. I gave her the space.
I remembered it as overnight, but in a court of law, I couldn’t prove it factually, so no point in trying, but that’s how I remembered it. She confirmed my understanding of it. However in a court of law, she would have to define what a snap meant. To a lawyer, they might mock it, so-to-speak.
“One day, two days?”
“What’s a snap mean?”
“Literally overnight?”
In a court of law, you’re looking for the actual sequence of events. People did it to me so often, it drove me crazy. They gave me their opinion, interpretation, as if it would hold up in a court of law as fact, which was the governing system I lived by, as the way people could express themselves in real life reflected Dr. J. I lived with that mediator of thought, you see, in my mind at all times. Why don’t you live with a legal system in your head? That was always my question.
Money. It’s a hook that snags you right on the smile line, like a fish, it’s primal. Dr. J was an ecstatic fountain of cash changing colors complete with a sexy woman holding a slinky snake — Joy’s in a business suit, clapping like a monkey with cymbals, hanging off Michel her limo driver/lover, getting sincere, so sincere, suddenly, for a man is in trouble, needs saving.
Elaboration aside, her personality was actually along these lines. But people exaggerate. However, that impulse or that state of invention within a normal context doesn’t take over the whole self, but it’s expressing a kind of truth, in that, it felt that way. They’re trying to be interesting, or entertaining, so did she have a condition? She was a moving exaggeration, not a normal person, and I hope I don’t have to defend myself. I had to defend myself — “I am not exaggerating,” but I understand people exaggerate, so why do you? Because it was real, it felt, sometimes, that I would bring up “this thing” people did, but did they exaggerate real crimes, like if someone said murder, to present a blunt case, would these people be wondering if they were exaggerating? Describing a serial killer, even? Who were they expecting? What did they think someone who’d orchestrate something like this would be like? Joy. Confetti. High-powered. A combination of traits that made no sense. I can’t begin to pull out all the crazy people who ever walked the earth, meaning I cannot confirm that everyone who’s nuts would follow her lead, but Angelica couldn’t compute it, it was foreign, outside the known world, so she couldn’t necessarily see it. She couldn’t foresee what was coming, impossible.
Before I go into these phone calls with Dr. J, I’ll give you a preview of it as you would have to keep in mind that the offer of money mixed with an innocent request, as that’s what it was, regardless of the timeframe—is coming out of the mouth of Dr. J — a chaotic system. Her speech was bizarre, my mother was a visibly unhinged human being. She had a physicality that even communicated it. She offered her, I’m guessing, hundreds, “oh my, kiss kiss, so excited, all smiles, so sorry, saving a man, you don’t even know, maybe a compliment to her, maybe all those thoughts at once, 500 hundred,” and she said yes. I don’t remember going home.
Another wall that I ran up against —a wall in people I told the story to, wanting to get sentimental, projecting sentiment all over me, not hearing what I was saying. I was practically twisted out of sense because of it. The people who claimed to know me, know what this story was about, came from parents they sought to be around. Home wasn’t that pleasant for me. I wasn’t exactly itching to go home. Someone tried to manipulate me later, unfortunately, over this stupid story, and he said, “don’t you think you were scared?” Dr. J was scary. Angelica Leibowitz and co. were not frightening basically speaking, I was four, responding to my environment. This was a warm-blooded group of people. My house could be scary.
The exact timeframe was between 5 to 7 weeks, or a span of a few weeks, as my father typically went on his stupid work trips for that length of time, while his wife is drinking, driving, and looking for sex downtown. But Nick, dopey Nick, is going to act like the innocent guy. And yes, I came to learn, with family, with people, they could exhibit similarly offensively blind behaviors that they don’t even see. There’s no way that the situation would have been possible if there hadn’t been real money involved, another reason why I call it a sex scandal. There was a deal made, and it began at step one. Angelica was a woman who had a weakness for money, so though I don’t know the factual truth, I believe a night snowballed.
By her bitterness, if I were reading it correctly, she even thought that she was getting a nice influx of cash. I can picture her trying to refuse the money, Dr. J whipping up her tornado of sparkles, insisting on it, only right, so sorry. Dr. J was spouting money, chauffeured in limos daily, a glorified tax attorney. Even the people I attempted to speak to about all this couldn’t compute the story from step one, so imagine if it was happening right in front of you, and if I’m being brutally honest, many people might not respond appropriately to something blatantly happening right in front of them. They might not be able to see it. She was hard for translate in real life. She didn’t sound real. This did not sound real, just like Twin Towers going down— didn’t feel real, did it??
Angelica didn’t dress me up like a doll, I didn’t like those clothes. I didn’t want to wear this stupid dress, I wanted to play, feel softness against my baby skin, t-shirts, easy.
As I heard “did she call?” fall from people’s mouths at least three times, beginning at Barbara Streisand, her voice returns to my mind. My emotional journey, over and over again!! “Call?” “What?” “Did she call?” For a long time, I could not lie, not at all, so when people asked me, “did she call?” I could get entangled ever further, because I would have to admit, sitting forward with a smile on my face, a sincere one, because I was angry, needing to take another step forward into this and defend myself. “She did,” it’s a riiiiiight…they’d usually go “oh,” as if there were hope, maybe. “All the time,” I smiled. “Never asked for me.” Their faces of puzzlement, confusion, that’s impossible. I tried to say, “this is not one of those stories…” everyone was designed to find an exit, and there was no exit. “Nothing I’m going to say is going to make you feel better,” I tried. In the beginning, Dr. J called every day, “and…” these people over the years, “she didn’t ask for you?”
Taking a breath, by this point.
“No,” I’d say, like, are you listening? Sometimes, I could act like a dumbbell, with hands falling on either side of body, “why would she do that?” They would look at me as if I were an alien because I played it for real, “why would she do that?” As if their innocence didn’t appear just as perturbing. “Why would Dr. J call me?” That’s not on her vocabulary. She’s not a normal person. The psychology of it escaped people. My mother was a case, the actual story did not register. It was hard to become real because of it. Amazing that words mean something, real, reality, yes. Reality is real. There are many. But we’re not always gifted at seeing across realities, as we’re hierarchical in design. Psychology. I remember, I was four, I would hear the phone ring, and I knew it was Dr. J. What is she doing? I was living somewhere else now. I remember peeking round a corner, just to catch a glimpse of her body…
“Can you describe this phone call?”
Angelica’s hand came up to her ear, holding an invisible phone, dramatically, “ahhhh,” she hit the high note, for shits. The tennis court behind her in soft focus, a man pulled a funky move to fling at the ball. She sighed “I love you” fourteen times. My mother would throw I love you at me, too, in happy daggers, in a poof powder of sweetness, it made Angelica cringe. “Disgustingly sweet,” Dr. J. And sighing around, professing it. “You’re so wonderful, my baby, my lovers, you don’t even know, you’re my best friend, here’s like 1000 bucks.” Lavish praises, sticks, nonsense. Punch of sex, like, Angelica’s face, splattering it at me in her chair at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club. “Why is she talking to me about her lovers?” She bought herself a confidante. “Ohhhhh my baby…” She even mocked motherhood. “Oh my baby, my poor baby, anything for the world,” her eyes reaching the stars, “for the baby. Only the world for my baby.”
“And she didn’t ask for me once?” I asked.
Another point I had to argue with the audience, if you can imagine. I would have to repeat myself, deal with their disbelief when I have Angelica Leibowitz walking me through it. They had no idea that they were stabbing me every step of the way, putting me down, belittling me, and all I had to do was tell them off. And I could not do it. Why I put myself through that, I don’t know, but going through the world with a background like this was a nightmare. With Angelica forever seared into my brain.
“Not once,” she said with a finger between us. “Not once,” she was taken aback, clearly. So, once again, she confirmed my understanding of the situation. I remembered that. I remember her figure in the kitchen downed in light, her tense reception of this call, even her confusion over why she wasn’t asking for me. Have you ever been in a situation that afterwards becomes clear to you? That’s what it feels like to be manipulated. Where you don’t even know what happened, how you got there. She got hooked and tossed into groundless nonsense with cash, that influenced her decision making, as that was a real hook…
My father’s sister, Jane, told me about a time that Dr. J called her about her cancer as Dr. J was a fan of that disease. She was taking all these medications, she told her, Jane relayed to me. She exhibited the same haze across her face as if she had just gotten hit, and she had no idea where she was. I wondered, as Dr. J was a major pill popper, if she was trying to justify her drug habit to herself? Or, was she strictly seeking sympathy as she appeared even starved? Why the phone call to her husband’s sister randomly about her cancer medications that she wasn’t taking? I had to reiterate points such as these to people. “Did she have cancer?” “No,” but no one could follow. Jane couldn’t even respond. Chaos. She’s not calling Nick, my father, and going, “what the hell is up with your wife?” She’s not asking Joy, “what are you talking about? You have cancer? Hello?” No reality, no response, like, “hello?” Calling someone and flinging cancer in their face. So it was easy for a normal person to lose sight of reality — wouldn’t this be behavior to respond to? —wondering if this reflected something about Dr. J once upon a time. Where did she learn this type of behavior? She went on and on about her terminal illnesses, she was always dying, but again, the package was so bright. Jane’s hazy state was reflected in Angelita—the haze. What was this haze?
Boundaries dissolved, we were lost. Like shock, it should humble us to consider how vulnerable we are, that you can be thrown and not totally be aware of it. They couldn’t make connections. She told the eyewitness in church she was had ovarian cancer, and even she fell for it. She’s dying, that’s for certain, Dr. J was always dying… my father becomes increasingly bizarre as a vague entity as he remained vague for the majority of my life — I projected all sorts of stories onto him that fell in a breathless drop — on one of these freefall rides, the stomach drops, once I started putting this together as an adult. Who was this man?
The money had an effect, though, as it does, or it can, as a force powerful enough to bend one’s perception of reality. The hook was shiny: money.
I didn’t remember going home, but I remember a birthday party at my house.
When I started waking up inside this story as an adult, I became aware of this memory, but any suggestion that the story wasn’t true, you see, the weight of a lifetime of people — who were ready to destroy the story made this a living hell. I’d have to grab onto the dish soap, quickly grab onto the facts or else I felt as if I were going to split in more than one direction. “She said this, I remember this,” through a field of disbelief. Once I was able to handle a new detail coming into my awareness, I could simply state it, but that was a harrowing journey.
I remember a birthday party.
Angelica described me as “the biggest bitch that ever was.” I would point and Joy would pop like a firecracker and there would be an explosion: balloons, cakes, and clowns, and of course, my mother’s breasts. If I started living with her in a snap of her fingers, however, where am I pointing? Or was she exaggerating in that moment? That these parties happened all the time? I don’t think I slept at my house anymore, but invention, to be honest, one of these words you’re not supposed to use, looked like a rather normal process in a person. People do invent, and they might not even know it, you see. People do, they invent. In the name of truth, too.
So the beginning of this fiasco might hold ambiguities and questions, like, why is she throwing a birthday party? Or, maybe she’s appearing with one because I demanded one, so every situation progresses. They would have had to meet to exchange the money.
Angelica’s anger in her chair, it sucks to feel vulnerable, to get in touch with that aspect of self as money was, at least in her case, a hook, and when it comes to vulnerability, it’s often just beneath your grasp. It’s not fair. A jury would most likely be on her side that money has that power, it’s nature, even. Now we’re skidding up basic ideas that we hold… she had six kids, but two were out of the house already, the first had married well, even, to even out that aspect of the analysis, that the number of children that she had influenced her decision making.
It was a hook for her.
But this phone call, these phone calls, sound like a game, don’t they? Dr. J. Riddle me this, riddle me that. A psychological game. Why she’s playing this game as the keeper of taxes, the savior of the fiscal world, I don’t know. It begins to inspire Moliere. It begins to inspire images of rococo ballgowns with no underwear underneath on swings with silk shoes and powdered wigs —a total farce. She’s a manipulator. I tried to explain that to people. She’s keeping her close, she hooked her with money, so technically, she worked for her now. She’s crazy, but she’s a “high-powered woman,” and she forked over serious cash. Joy might sound like a fiction. People seemed to have a hard time imagining someone could be so calculated, but we can be, and there are, in fairytale tones, as I felt as if I were talking to people who lived in a kind of fairytale, psychopaths, sociopaths, even rapists. Child abusers. Pedophiles. These people live and breathe in the world. They have a system of functioning just like anyone else. Do they know what they’re doing? The people I told this story to searched for a reason, but did they search for a reason for child abuse? Rape? Reflections. Do you give a shit about the reasons? Dr. J’s flapping her wrists around like some buffoon of all this flashy unawareness, blindness, scurrying to her limo… IRS. What a buffoon. Dr. J doesn’t care, I assure you, though she may act like she does but ACT, really ACT.
Later, I read Eric Berne’s seminal short book published in 1961, The Games People Play. As a transactional psychologist, he described the realm of human relationships as a transactional space. We’re not interacting, in other words, we’re getting something out of it, which I wished I had kept in mind, personally, over the course of my life. He went through our “hey how are you” transactions with our neighbors, to “do you know so and so” at parties, so we’re getting closer in other words. Finally, the death match —when we begin to get close. He believed that “the games people play” rooted from intimacy, either trying to avoid it or get it. But would that framework apply to, I don’t know, non-Americans? Is it true in the absolute? I found that many people believed they possessed the absolute truth, and though everyone isn’t like that, it’s a hierarchical stance. It tends to apply. People could ACT as if Berne was absolute, when it might not apply to another culture, but there does seem to be a fair amount of truth in it.
He said, “the more deranged, the harder they play,” and Dr. J is most definitely playing fucked up games. He believed we learn the games we play in our childhoods, and they aren’t trite, so what was this game?
It was almost as if the tennis players started acting…strangely. They’re playing a game, but it becomes unrecognizable. They could hop on this court precisely, follow a rolling neon ball side by side, intensely. There would be rules, in other words, and they’d be showcasing how absurd rules can get, as the absurd is a systemic response, the human responding to a strict system…immigration, for example. Bouncing on his foot on that tiny middle divider on the baseline almost like a dancer, he’d launch, yes, to make it more ridiculous, the ball with his hands. Just a twisted game, there’s room for humor. Interestingly, this warped game triggered a strange reaction in people as they were listening to the story — this would be where people acted as if they understood what it was going on, insisted on it, even, in all seriousness to me, just as absurd, as the players fly into the air mimicking fish. They would insist that they knew what it meant. “She did it because…” A cop would never respond like that, the cop is trained, theoretically, to pursue— “what is going on here?!” That would be the entry point. “This is silly. You can’t act like that.” That was the person who did not exist in my life.
They would not know what it means, they would have to investigate, not assume, but that isn’t always the case. Do they know what they are doing when they are targeting Black men? Nothing normal about kicking down doors, shooting innocent people, and yet, there are terrors out there, real terrors, it’s unbelievable what can happen to a person. I didn’t know it was shocking. At times, exhausting. What people know, don’t know, forget. The truth, the subject, is complex. There isn’t just one, obviously.