If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor (6 page)

Mike, Don and I were chased out to the front yard. Mike had longer limbs, so he hauled ass down the street and climbed a tree. Don and I were left with no choice other than to lock ourselves inside Mom's '57 Chevy.

After catching our breath, we discovered a bag of Spanish peanuts in the glove compartment and proceeded to gorge ourselves. The girls, hungry from chasing us, begged for a few peanuts, so Don and I cracked the windows enough to pour some out. Instead of swallowing them, the girls chewed them into a paste and smeared the putrid mess across every window. Within seconds, my gag reflex kicked in.

"Don... Don -- I'm gonna barf..."

"Oh, no you're not." he warned. "You barf and I'll pound you."

Faced with an unpleasant choice, I clamped a hand over my mouth and held the vomit in check. I don't know how long I stayed like that, but the girls eventually went away and I was able to retch in the street.

I have never eaten Spanish peanuts since.

For some perverted reason, the fad of making yourself faint caught on at my elementary school. To pull it off, you'd inhale deeply several times, then hold your breath as someone gave you a bear hug from behind -- within seconds, you'd be out cold. This was about the dumbest thing I'd ever done, but the girls seemed to get a giggle out of it, so I did it too many times for my own good.

I stopped the practice after I performed it in front of a group of kids out on the playground one day. I had figured out a way to faint by myself, but it required someone to catch you when you passed out. On this occasion, my loyal "friends" all thought it would be funny to step out of the way as I collapsed and let me land flat on my face. I woke up, all alone, feeling like someone had hit me over the head with a two-by-four. I went home early that day.

A "slam book" passed around in fifth grade gave me a true sense of how "women" perceived me. This spiral binder, with anonymous opinions about each student in class, proved to be a fascinating look into prepubescent social structure. Comments about me from girls (the hint was brightly colored ink and circles instead of dots over every "i") ranged from "really funny," to "looks like a witch." I must say, the experience left me even more confused. I know roughly the same about women today.

Only months before, Lennice Boraski had trampled my heart during a dramatic break-up at recess. Nothing was more devastating than to watch her smudge the message,
I love Bruce Campbell,
on her notebook into an illegible blot.

Several years later, Lennice and I repaired our friendship to the extent that it ultimately led to my first kiss. This concept is riddled with clichés, but it had a profound effect on me. Until the day when I sat with Lennice and a few other wanton kids playing Truth or Dare in the woods, I had never felt the raw intensity that intimacy promotes. Somewhere along the game, I lost a "dare," and it led to a challenge to kiss Lennice before the day was out.

The actual kiss didn't come until we walked back through the woods toward Lennice's house. We both realized that smooching in the open would be out of the question, so we found a quiet patch of woods to perform the deed.

It's amazing what the mind remembers about such incidents. To me, the kiss was rushed, awkward and unfulfilling. I'm sure Lennice shares the same complaint. Even so, it was exhilarating. This wasn't a good-night peck on Mom's rosy cheek -- our kiss was a voyage into uncharted adolescent territory.

My neighborhood was a great source of fraternization with the opposite sex. Kathy Koska lived right next door to Lennice. Her Brother Kevin and I played softball often and Kathy would drop by some days to actually play. That was fine by me. She was extremely athletic and looked older than she was. I assumed she was off-limits because she hung out with Stud Boy Jim Linklater down the street. I surmised that because one day, Kevin and I unwittingly flushed the couple, red-faced, out of a field.

Much to my delight, as I walked home with her after a softball game in Boraski's pasture, she asked me if I knew her phone number. I did, of course, because of numerous calls to Kevin, and I reeled off the digits in rapid succession, ending in 1-3-6-9.

"How did you know that?" she marveled.

"Well, they're all odd numbers, see, in ascending order..."

Mr. Smoothie, that was me.

Kathy was very impressed and asked me to call her some time. It must have been months later when I finally mustered the courage, and our chat came on the heels of a casual call to her brother Kevin.

"Bruce, let me ask you something," she said, sounding amazingly sexy. Of course, I didn't know the meaning of the word at the time, but her tone really made my short hairs stand at attention.

"Shoot," I countered, failing to sound older and wiser than I was.

"If I asked you to kiss me some time...
would you?"
After a long, long pause I blurted,
"Of course...
you just say when." I wish I could report that Kevin flushed Kathy and I out of that same field soon thereafter, but it was not meant to be. I never called Kathy again simply because I blanched at the mere mention of her name. What would I do if I found myself alone with this older
woman?
What
could
I do? What if she attacked me? No doubt, if she had even so much as laid a hand on me, I would have wet myself (or worse) and fainted on the spot (already a skill I excelled at).

The downside of having only brothers was that there were no girls to provide crucial counseling. Mike was always busy putting Bond-O on his collection of rusted '57 Chevys and Don didn't know any more than I did.

When junior high rolled around and we merged into a larger school known as West Maple, I became surrounded by what seemed to be an ocean of beautiful women in halter-tops, bell-bottoms and Earth Shoes.

My locker was directly between Joan and Heather Campbell. Joan I knew -- she was swell, but Heather was a whole new ballgame. She was a redhead with a great sense of humor and a body that would distract any postpubescent male on the planet. I tried in vain to woo her.

"But Heather," I pleaded, "if we got married, you wouldn't even have to change your last name."

Heather had other plans. I'm sure she now is happily married to some lucky sap in a Detroit suburb and has fourteen kids.

Kathy Beard's locker wasn't far away either. For some as yet unexplained reason this tall, bronzed goddess and I found each other in an arranged relationship.

"You like each other," we were informed. Our "dates" were set up by mutual friends: "You should go out with each other."

"Buy her stuff," came the next directive. The next thing I knew, I was buying Kathy the lamest pair of earrings ever sold and spending the longest hour of my life at her house. Don't get me wrong, Kathy was a knockout. The problem with this pairing was that there was nothing organic about it. Within a month, news of our dissolved relationship came through third parties as well.

"Sorry Bruce, she doesn't like you anymore."

I met Kathy at her locker and all I could manage to blurt out, in utter bewilderment, was, "I guess we should break up."

"Yeah, I guess so," was her equally confused reply.

2

I BEHELD THE FUTURE, AND THE FUTURE WAS PLAY

Childhood was coming to a halt and I didn't like it one bit.

The prospects were depressing: Adulthood meant that I'd have to stop having fun and do something I didn't really want to do for the rest of my life -- which was apparently a considerable chunk of time.

I was convinced that there was a way out -- a way to avoid becoming an unhappy adult -- and I searched unconsciously for a profession that could perpetuate the concept of the endless summer.

St. Dunstan's provided the answer.

Back in 1887, George Booth, an iron magnate, married Ellen Scripps, daughter of
The Detroit News
owner -- an event that was as much of a merger as it was a marriage. In 1904, they moved to the rolling farmlands of suburban Detroit and created a 174-acre estate, back when the word still had meaning.

Between 1922 and 1942, as their empire faded, George and Ellen donated much of their surrounding land to an educational academy which, in turn, gave birth to St. Dunstan's Guild of Cranbrook -- or simply, St. D's.

This amateur theater guild put on a half dozen plays a year. Most of them were mounted in the indoor pavilion, but each summer a showy musical was presented in the outdoor theater. Built in 1932 as a replica of a Greek theater, this amazing facility boasted circular, arena-type seating, towering pine trees and reflecting pools.

There, in the summer of 1966, I watched my dad Charlie perform in the musical,
The Pajama Game.
As an eight-year-old, there was something special about sipping hot chocolate atop cushions in this dreamy location while my dad goofed around on stage.

Until that night, I had no idea that the old man did that "actor" stuff. My dad always struck me as a relatively serious, "normal" guy, so what was up with the makeup and the funny clothes? The same guy who tucked me in at night was singing and dancing with a woman that wasn't my mom and he was having
fun.