Forever the Fat Kid: How I Survived Dysfunction, Depression and Life in the Theater (15 page)

The position advertised in the newspaper was for photographers to take pictures of children in department stores. I called the next morning. The position didn’t require extensive photographic experience. The main requirement for the job, as I found out at my interview, was a pleasing personality, which was to be used to convince people shopping in department stores to stop and have their portraits taken. Or, more specifically, have their children’s portraits taken. We’re not talking in a separate facility either, like the photo studios found in some of the major retailers today. I’m talking a makeshift setup, usually in the middle of the aisle in the children’s clothing department. If you shopped in any major east coast retail store during this time, then you know what I’m talking about. The come-on was a “beautiful 8x10 color portrait for the unbelievably low price of 88¢.” Of course, when you arrived weeks later to pick up your 88¢ portrait, you were given a hard sell on an entire package of various size prints of your lovely children. A case of, once again, seeing something that I love being commercialized to the point of making me want to vomit.

WHERE’S THE BABY?

My stint as a department store Scavullo introduced me to a wide variety of people and situations. Assignments were between three and six days a week (guess which ones I always seemed to get stuck with?), the stores to which we were assigned were located in neighborhoods that ranged from upper middle-class to urban ghetto (guess where I always got sent?), and were located within thirty minutes to three hours away from the home office in central New Jersey (guess who ended up with more mileage and wear-and-tear on his car than most of the other employees?) We were given difficult quotas that we were expected to meet, had a ridiculous amount of equipment to cart around, and were forced to attend company pep rallies on a weekly basis. The members of the public that I was thrust into contact with were quite the colorful bunch. Over the course of my employment I was flirted with, cursed out, spit on, fondled, and slapped, among other assorted indignities. That I lasted as long as I did–approximately two months–was a miracle.

One of my first assignments was a one-day stint at a Woolworth’s in Harlem. A young couple brought their new baby in to have portraits made to give to their families. The young parents seemed well-to-do, educated and upwardly mobile. They were also two of the nicest people that I encountered during my time on the job. In addition to this being my first week on the job, their child was the first infant that I would be photographing. Unlike toddlers and older children, a bit of rearranging was necessary when photographing an infant. The pedestal on which the older children were seated needed to be raised, bringing it more in line with the camera lens. A small trap door was then lifted and propped up, providing a slope on which the infant was placed, raising their tiny, unsupported heads toward the camera.

I made all of the necessary adjustments, took the baby from the parents, and gently placed her on the sloped trap door. I then went back to the camera and looked through the viewfinder to see how everything lined up. The pedestal appeared to be properly positioned, I saw the little imitation fur throw that I had placed over the sloping trap door, adding texture to the picture as well as comfort for the infant, in the appropriate area of the lens. The only thing missing was the baby herself. Standing up and looking over the camera, I quickly discovered why there was no baby visible in my viewfinder. Apparently, I had failed to do the final, but crucial, adjustment. I hadn’t secured the small strap on the pedestal designed to hold the baby securely in place. During my short trip from the pedestal back to the camera, the baby had fallen from the carpet-covered trap door to the very unpadded floor surface at the foot of the pedestal. I was traumatized! Things didn’t get much better throughout the course of my employment and I soon found myself looking for an excuse, any excuse, to get the hell out of this job! It wasn’t long before one came my way.

I GOT YOUR NUMBER

Over the years as I went from job to job to job, Jamesie and Ruthie enjoyed a fairly consistent career in a business that greatly subsidized our household income; my parents were number runners. For those of you who didn’t grow up in or around blue-collar or lower economic neighborhoods, let me explain. For years there has been an illegal gambling operation throughout the country commonly referred to as “playing numbers.” Growing up, it was as common and as popular in my neighborhood as legalized lotteries are to the general public today. Basically, you would bet a small amount–anywhere from a nickel to a couple of dollars when I was growing up–on a three-digit number. The three digits represented the last three digits of the payoff amount at a specified racetrack that day. If your numbers matched, you received a payoff of about 500-to-1. Not too shabby.

Oh, the colorful ways that people came up with for picking their lucky numbers. Their birthdays, anniversaries, license plate numbers, street addresses, you name it. However, the most popular inspiration came from one’s dreams. People often claimed that a number would come to them, plain as day, in their dreams. Usually, though, the lucky number wasn’t so evident and had to be interpreted. This is where the ever popular “dream books” sold at most corner stores and delis in ethnic neighborhoods came into play. If you’ve ever seen these curious books or pamphlets and wondered what the hell they were for, now you know. These books provide a detailed and comprehensive listing of any subject or topic that you might have dreamed about, as well as its respective three-digit equivalent. And let me tell you, these books are quite extensive in the subject matter that they cover. I remember picking one up when I was about thirteen years old and looking up the topic of a dream that I had the previous night (yes, even I got into playing the numbers). I never thought that the subject of my particular dream would be listed. Boy, was I wrong! Right there in black and white was the three-digit number for “big dick” – 000!

My parents were involved in numbers pretty much from the time that I was born up until the late 70s. Why? Because it was easy money! Especially for my father who had worked his way up from a mere “runner” to a kind of mid-level management position over the years; kind of an “under boss.” At his peak, he had about a dozen runners who reported to him and he, in turn, reported to his bosses–men who all had last names ending in vowels. They were all nice people, and I have very fond memories of them. So what if it was illegal and, if caught, you could end up doing time behind bars? The payoff was well worth the gamble; at least that’s how my parents saw it. However, during the time that I was toiling away in department stores, convincing gullible parents to have portraits made of their not always beautiful or well-behaved children, my parent’s luck ran out.

It wasn’t the first time that my parents had gotten busted for taking part in this illegal operation. The first time was years earlier when I was about five or six years old and nothing really came of it. This time was different though. While Ruthie was somehow able to beat the rap, Jamesie didn’t fare as well and ended up having to do some time (three months) and pay a steep fine. That this incident made the newspapers provided me with a legitimate excuse to get out of the child photography business. It also provided Ruthie with an excuse to end her involvement in this risky venture; she stopped playing numbers completely. Jamesie, on the other hand, wasn’t quite convinced. I guess that running numbers was still too lucrative a side job, and he felt the risk worth taking. Within days of being released from jail, he was back in business. It would be another two years before he would completely give up this second career. And it wasn’t a run-in with the law that convinced him to do so.

SUMMER SCHOOL

In a move that I envisioned as broadening my employability in the world of show biz, I enrolled in a course at New York University called “Film and Television Director’s Workshop” in the summer of 1976. I figured that I would gain new and valuable information about another entertainment medium, while at the same time keeping my parents happy by gaining credits toward an anticipated college degree. In the end, the amount of knowledge that I got out of the course hardly matched the $100 per credit that it cost to take it. However, I did manage to reap a few other benefits.

In a conversation with one of my classmates, I discovered that he was directing an off-campus showcase production of Lorraine Hansberry’s play, The Sign In Sidney Brustein’s Window. Within seconds, I let him know–discreetly, of course–that I was an actor and offered to help him out on the production in any way that I could. As I had hoped, he asked me to audition. I did, and I was cast in the show. This was one of my first involvements in a long line of shows that I believed in, that showed promise, that would have been a great addition to my resume, and that never came to fruition. Had I known that this was to be a recurring theme in my theatrical life, I might have given up on the theater right then and there. Fortunately, I didn’t have a clue.

About two weeks into rehearsals, the actress playing the female lead got a “paying gig” and quit the show. The director quickly found another student at the university to replace her. I had become quite friendly with the departing actress and wasn’t too keen on welcoming and having to adapt to a new leading lady. However, when Mary showed up at her first rehearsal, I liked her immediately. She was a warm and friendly person with a vibrant personality. Her positive vibes, as we labeled them during that period, won everybody over instantly. More importantly, as much as I hated to admit it, she was incredibly talented! Far better in the role than the actress she replaced. Unfortunately, I never had a chance to form a lasting friendship with Mary because, as I said, the production never happened and we all went our separate ways a week or two later.

I’m not sure what became of most of the actors from that production, but I did notice Mary’s name appearing here and there as she continued to pursue her theatrical ambitions. Shortly after that, I began seeing her face in the background scenes of movies and on television. It was my first experience of seeing someone that I was personally acquainted with climb the ladder of success; it gave me hope. You can imagine how completely blown away I was years later as I watched Mary–looking incredibly beautiful, I might add–on the Academy Awards the year that she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in the motion picture, Dances With Wolves. Although she was unaware of it, Mary McDonnell inspired me to believe that with talent and perseverance, it was possible to achieve success in this crazy business.

PETER

There was another actor in The Sign In Sidney Brustein’s Window that left a lasting impression on me. He never came close to winning an Oscar, but he did win my heart. I was impressed with Peter from our first rehearsal. He, too, was quite talented, but more than that, the boy was cute as hell! Devilishly handsome, and with a droll sense of humor, I was instantly attracted to him. We ended up having a brief affair that, although fleeting, remains burned in my memory as one of the most idyllic, bohemian, and intense romantic involvements of my life.

Peter lived in an apartment in a building on Fifth Avenue, just a few blocks north of Washington Square Park. Although the building was astute and respectable, it even had a doorman, stepping into Peter’s apartment was like stepping into an apartment in a much seedier neighborhood; it, in no way, matched the stately building in which it was housed. It was sparsely furnished and in need of serious sprucing up. This is, of course, an observation made in hindsight. At the time, I found it to be one of the most romantic places I had ever been. The greater part of the apartment held stacks of magazines and an extensive collection of plays and books on acting and the theater, as well as tons of sheet music. We would end up at that apartment each night after rehearsal drinking tea or sharing a glass of wine, sharing our love for–and opinionated views on–all things artistic, fantasizing about where our lives would end up, and, of course, giving in to “the passion of our physical desires.” That this affair lasted just a month or two doesn’t detract from the beauty of it one bit. On the contrary, it only enhances it. Ultimately, the realities of the world brought an end to our involvement. Living quite a distance from each other, not to mention the struggles and distractions inherent in pursuing theatrical careers, the time that we spent together began to dwindle. It wasn’t long before the quest to find a place for ourselves in the world of professional theater, along with the search for our own identities–we were both barely out of our teens–caused us to lose contact completely.

Years later, in a nostalgic moment, I decided to try and locate Peter. I began with a fruitless search through the various New York telephone books. Actors, if nothing else, are transient beings and it had been many years since we’d last spoken to each other; Peter had probably changed residences at least a dozen times since then. Next, I tried locating him through the various performing unions and, again, I was unsuccessful. This was 1995, and I had just gotten my first Internet hookup on my home computer. So, with the help of a computer-savvy friend, I tried to locate Peter via the World Wide Web. I searched each state from New York to California for a phone listing. As he had an unusual last name, I figured that it wouldn’t be difficult to single him out. Again, I came up empty-handed. Finally, I gave up. If our paths were meant to cross again, it was now in the hands of fate.

Weeks later, while trying to locate a family member with whom we’d lost contact, I discovered how to search government records and vital statistics. Remembering Peter, and now with another resource at my fingertips, I attempted once again to find the lost love of my youth. This time my efforts were met with success–of sorts. I finally found a document that led me to Peter’s whereabouts. Sadly, that document was his death certificate. At first, I tried telling myself that this couldn’t possibly be my Peter. However, after checking the date of birth on the document, there was no mistaking that it was him. Most upsetting was the realization that Peter had died almost eleven years earlier! My heart sank; why hadn’t I tried to find him sooner? Why had I just let him disappear from my life like that? I thought, “Maybe if we had stayed together he would, somehow, still be alive.” As I re-read the death certificate over and over again, I began getting pissed off at myself for not having made the effort to try and find him before now. Was I really that self-centered and detached from other people? Did he mean so little to me, as a person, that it wasn’t worth my time to stay in touch? Did I take others in my life for granted too? Was I an insensitive, uncaring person? It took a little while for me to come to terms with all of this but, as I always do, I finally digested, rationalized, and accepted what had happened. I got past the self-anger, I got past the regret, but I never got over how unfair it was that Peter was screwed out of what should have been a much longer life.