I met his eyes for the first time and flatly told him, “Yes.”
Across the street—which smelled slightly rancid, like the odor coming from the men’s bathroom at the beach—stood the low brick building that Dr. Duke had pointed out, and when I stepped from the bright midday sun into the dimly lit waiting room, with its flickering fluorescent lights, my eyes needed a moment to adjust. I don’t recall if anyone greeted me or how I got from the door to the chair where I sat, but during an acting exercise years later, I did remember how I stared at the large fish tank that stood in the center of the dim room. I remembered the sound of the bubbles pumping tiny amounts of oxygen to a family of ordinary little fish gliding through their murky glass world, remembered so clearly watching those fish as if they mattered, until a man appeared speaking thickly accented English. He led me to a room with big dirty windows and a long metal table positioned in the center, then pointed to a small alcove in the corner, partially hidden by a limp curtain. Inside I found a cot where a folded dingy-white gown waited, obviously for me. The man then handed me a paper cup and a white pill, which I washed down with the tiny amount of water held in the cup. It was barely enough to moisten my mouth—but since this was Tijuana in 1964, drinking the water was probably not a good idea anyway. I removed my clothes in a hurry, not wanting to be caught in between; out of my clothes and not completely in theirs.
I can see myself climbing up onto the shiny table, feel the cold slap on my bare bottom, remember awkwardly lying down and looking up at the ceiling. And even though I remember everything, I know that part of me wasn’t in the room anymore. I had left rooms many times before, and the transition between being present and being gone was a familiar glide away. Some piece of me was there, responding to their instructions, and the rest of me went off somewhere else, somewhere I wasn’t in danger anymore, even though the girl on the table probably was.
I’m sure it was all terrifying, but she didn’t feel afraid. She just lay still as a mask was periodically placed over her mouth and nose, emitting the unmistakably noxious fumes of ether, which she remembered from when she’d had her tonsils taken out at the age of five. She tried to pull the numbing gas into her lungs, gulping as much as she could, but each time the mask would be removed before she could inhale enough to ease the tearing, scraping pain that was impossible to get away from. She could take in only enough to make her head spin, only enough to disconnect her from her arms and legs, leaving her unable to move. And always she felt the pain, a dangerous deep invasion.
Then something else. She felt something else and tried to focus, to turn her mind to that “something else.” What was it? The ether was being administered by the man she had followed from the waiting room and as he stood at her side, hoarding the anesthetic with one hand, with his other he had shoved aside her gown, exposing her right breast, and he was now in the process of rubbing and fumbling with it.
The realization blew a whistle in my dizzy head and the taskmaster in me woke up. Move, Sally, move! the voice in my head said over and over. Move your arm. You can do it! Think, move your right arm. Move it! Gathering as much force as I could, I batted his hand off, then turned my face away from the ether. I was done with that. I didn’t want any more. There was obviously a price to pay for relief and I would not pay it.
When all the nameless equipment was finally removed, I tried to curl into a ball, wrapping my arms around myself as best I could, but the two men wanted me to get down, aggressively helping me from the table. With tiny steps I walked back to sit on the flimsy cot, then vomited in a pan on the floor, and as I slowly started to dress, one of the men pulled the curtain aside, telling me to leave. I couldn’t stay any longer. I must go, now. So I did.
I didn’t lay my head down on my mother as the day faded into night. I don’t know why. She was sitting right next to me in the car, but I didn’t. I sat up straight, leaning my head on the clean, automatically powered window. If I slept, it didn’t give comfort, and where there had been Patti’s mindless gay chatter on the drive down, there was a heavy silence the whole way back.
I couldn’t possibly see the lifelong path that was opening up before me that summer and early fall of 1964, just as I couldn’t see the 405 freeway during the long trip home on that day in September. I don’t remember saying goodbye or thanking anyone when I pulled myself from the air-conditioned back seat, stepping dazed onto the summer-thrashed Bermuda grass. I most certainly should have said something, because at that time, Dr. Duke had been risking his profession for me. Maybe my mother made up for my neglect when she climbed out behind me, though I have no memory of her walking into the house at all. I guess she must have, probably looking for the comfort only vodka seemed to give her.
When I finally looked toward the door, longing to be inside and away from the day, there was Steve, sitting on the front step, waiting. My heart split open as he stood and wordlessly enfolded me. Had I told him? I don’t know. But I didn’t expect he would be there and I instantly hid my face in his chest, feeling safe as he led me into the house, opened the door to my room, and carefully put me to bed. When I cried, it was not my mother who held me. It was Steve. I felt I was changed, forever tainted, and I grieved deeply for the loss of something I couldn’t name.
Six weeks later, in early November, three days before my eighteenth birthday, I began my career. Wearing a dreadful pink swimsuit, I stood on a cold Malibu beach, looked directly into the camera, and said my first line of dialogue. “You see before you, me. Gidget.”
PART TWO
Who knows anyway what it is, that wild, silky part of ourselves without which no poem can live?
—Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook
I promise there will always be
a little place no one will see
a tiny part deep in my heart
that stays in love with you
—“Where Do You Start,” Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman, Johnny Mandel
Photo from TV Star Parade fan magazine of Baa shortening my skirt.
7
Gidget