Greetings from beyond the grave.
I died and went to Vaudeville...and this is me, waiting backstage.
Holding my accordion, in a swimsuit: waiting to high-dive off the low-dive into nothing and everything all at once.
I'm waiting for the Marx Brothers to finish their act. I watch Harpo and Chico's backsides intently, and smile.
"These goofballs...," they're always eating up the first five minutes of my act. I play the intermission. No. Scratch that. I play the accordion, DURING the intermission.
I hear rain pitterpatting outside the theater, and I know people will be heading home soon. "Hurry up now!" I whisper, waving my hand to no one because no one is looking. The Marxes are running around the stage like monkeys lit afire. The audience is going nuts.
I'm lost here, I thought, only yesterday, and now I feel finally like I'm fitting in! Waiting in the wings for the Marxes to finish their madness...I am going to sing and dance, and play the accordion, and put on a show for anyone willing to watch, for anyone willing to brave the storm later, instead of sneaking home now while they still have a chance in bearable rain.
In a red swimsuit, I slink across the stage. The Marxes are still bowing, but soon exit the opposite side from my entrance.
"You're not leaving yet, I hope!" I say to the crowd playfully. I'm happy. I'm forgetful! This isn't the end...it's only the intermission! Of course the crowd will stay; of course the people will stick around! Be damn a storm, the Marxes will be back soon. And then I can hide behind them again, until you like me again.
After the show, the rain falls harder with every second and every step we take towards the train station. The Brothers will not let me go onto the train. Groucho takes me by the arm, and pulls me towards a waiting car.
In the backseat, I am squeezed between Harpo and Chico, and now their behinds are of no concern to me. I am a grownup, not a romantic, saucy, glossy-eyed, sex-obsessed girl in love with every man over forty (or am I?). "I am not," another voice says, and it's always best to listen to the first voice, not the second.
-- Or is it the other way around?
And I nod my head, only to have the brothers shoot glances of disapproval towards me, and then to each other.
Just how I got here -- is a mystery.
I am lost here, and found here, and waiting in the wings.
________________________
From the backstage to the backseat; a hired-car ride in the rain. I turn my head and watch out the backglass as the train grows smaller, and darker, and all together disappears into the night, rain, black, and smoke.
Groucho lights his cigar, and the driver complains.
"Don't you know who he is?" I ask.
The driver ignores us, and Groucho laughs, telling me not to play the whole 'Don't you know who we are' bit with the locals; it isn't nice.
I didn't mean to be a snob, but the Marxes are pretty big names on the Vaudeville circuit, and if the man in the greasepaint mustache wants to smoke a cigar in the back of his own hired car, then tell me, why can't he?
Maybe the driver is allergic to smoke, I say to myself. And I wish the voice in my head would be quiet for one night. Quiet for one ride. I hardly ever get to sit this close to the Marxes when we ride the train from town-to-town, so now I finally have a chance to talk to them.
My other voice tells me the Marxes don't want to talk to me. I'm just a two-bit performance artist/actress/glorified sideshow freak in a red swimsuit and high-heels as I play the accordion with my teeth and thighs, climbing a ladder to a board twenty-feet high only to dive into water, all while still playing. Even when wet...
Never miss a beat.
I won't, I say to my voice.
We arrive to a daunting, three-story, nightmarish castle of a concrete building, and "No, I don't want to go to the Standish Sanitarium!!"
The boys wrestle me from the car...
My real voice shouts. My real voices cries. My other voice tells me to be strong, and brave, and surely sweet Harpo won't let 'em keep me here.
In the lobby, he looks at me, as if to say, "Well, maybe she isn't crazy...can't we keep her overnight?" An injured kitten -- maybe I could be mended! Maybe I just need a man who knows what he's doing; a man with a heart. But Harpo only sighs and walks away wordless.
Defeated.
Even the nice one's given up on you, my other voice says. And soon I'm lifted onto a white and metal gurney. Like freight, loaded onto a truck. I am nothing. I am not even human to these lab-coated men. To these two remaining brothers. Soon Chico slinks away; I hear him asking to use the telephone. Groucho is asking to see the doctor for permission to sign me in, and get the Hell out.
They roll me down a hallway. The gurney wobbly, squeaky. Wheels turning in my mind on stained white linoleum squares. Marked with treks of wet shoes. Squeaking. Wobbling hands go beneath me, struggling to lift me? I feel so heavy now. And these faces look constantly-aging. Beneath yellow lights on the ceiling...long yellow lights...I meet Dr. Hall. He talks to me through a mask; shakes Groucho's hand, and Groucho leaves.
Two of the ever-aging men take me into a white room. They strip me down, and wrap me in a cold wet sheet. Ice-water straight jacket! I don't bother to scream. They harness me to a bed.
Out for hours, or days...I awake to see Chico. He is standing over me. He puts a pillow behind my head, and offers to play the piano.
"There is no piano," I tell him.
So he pulls a chair over to my bedside, and plays me.
I like it when he hits the high notes...if only he'd shoot the keys on the low notes.
"I'm making you uncomfortable?" he asks.
"You're making me wish I wasn't wrapped in a cold wet sheet."
He tries to tear it with his teeth. As he leans further into me, his hair tickles my nose and smells of train smoke.
I try hard not to sneeze...
__________________________
I do sneeze, and outside the doorway, Chico and I hear the shuffle of feet. Voices.
The knob turns as Chico ducks beneath the bed.
Standing in the doorway is Dr. Hall, asking if there is a problem.
I shake my head no.
"Perhaps you're catching cold from being out in the rain," he says.
I nod my head yes.
Whatever they tell me, I'll agree!
Beneath the bed, Chico makes a noise, and Dr. Hall's eyes dart to the floor.
I'm sure he'll catch Chico now, but Dr. Hall doesn't even take the time to look. To investigate. Maybe I'm not crazy, but who cares. It's easier to see the picture already painted then to wait for some newer, clearer image to emerge. Or perhaps the artist wrote a sonnet and tucked it beneath a crazy painting. There's always something deeper. Hidden. It pays to break apart the frame.
The doctor steps into the hallway, calling for lackeys and a nurse.
"Help me get this girl to the operating room," he says.
Another man I can't see tells the doctor, it'll be a moment, and just as the doctor pulls the door to -- with one finger raised and an odd smile as if to say, There's no escaping -- I hear a slight tap come from the window.
I look. And there is Harpo: his face pressed against the glass, smiling a not-so-odd smile of, I am here, and I will rescue you!
I smile too, but then check, looking at the door to make sure I'm not being watched. To make sure I'm not crazy, and No, the door IS shut.
Chico crawls from beneath the bed, and is adjusting his jacket, squinting at Harpo, as if he too believes it may all be an illusion.
I move, thinking I can rise from this bed, but I can't. I'm still in an ice cold straight jacket. Not as wet as it was, but what difference does it make. A nearly dry and stiff sheet tied around me, and my wrist fastened to a bed. A white, wet inch worm; armless; a wingless bird...the bird is gonna eat the worm! And soon I'll be an ouroboros, and disappear completely.
Chico answers the window. Letting in Harpo.
Of course once the pane is lifted, there is a row of metal bars, and Harpo will have to squeeze between two of them. My eyes widen. Just how he fits through it, I'm not sure. I'm thinking surely he must be made of sugar! Through salivation, or perspiration, he can condense himself tight enough to fit through anything! Walk beneath doors. Squeeze through keyholes. Windows. The smallest man on Earth, and here he is at my bedside, looming like Christ upon the cross.
"You're not here to save me," I say.
And he nods his head yes.
Whatever they tell us must be true...I am here to agree. I take no concern of Chico crawling out the window ahead of us. How he squeezes through the bars, I'll never be sure! But he does. As Harpo frees me from the brown leather straps of the bed. He saws 'em in half with his bow tie, and through use of a taxi horn, fashions for me a bed sheet dress.
"You're very creative," I say. And he nods his head, neither yes or no...
Just sideways.
______________________
Out the open window, we crawl. Now I know how Chico fit through the metal bars: they're not made of metal at all! They're made of rubber. Or maybe yarn...I reach out to touch them, and all I can feel is cotton and numb.
The world ahead is still at night; black, wet, and foggy. I see an orange light shining through the trees where the fog lingers like a gray gauzy curtain. A vaudevillian theater set aflame, and instead of engulfment, it simply turns itself inside-out into nothing. A cloaking device! A ghost.
I see smoke, and I'm sure I smell something burning.
Within a mile of the Sanitarium, there appears to be a church. Lights on outside, and I see no one. Not a single figure, nor movement. Just still, and haunted. A cemetery to the left of it. A bit on a hill, and wouldn't it be awful to be buried on a hill? I'd be afraid of rolling over in my grave, even if no one spoke of me.
Remembered me.
"Iris, jump!" I hear a voice shout, and I assume it can't be Harpo, so it must be Chico; I can't tell through this thick fog.
Distracted by trees. The sick twisted limbs remind me of arms, and I almost want to reach out to them...to the brothers, too, but they're so far below me.
I hesitate. Imagining how my fellow inmates and patients would feel about knowing the bars were made of rubber or yarn all along; they're only made of metal long enough to discourage us! Or look to be made of metal...and we could have escaped if we wanted, had we known, but we didn't know; we were too discouraged. If the bars look to be made of metal, why even bother? Why even try to escape?? Why rise from the bed if you're going nowhere in this life, but back to bed, and over again, and rise again, back to bed again. Give me the twenty-foot ladder to a diving platform, to a pool of water, and back again! I'd rather dive every night til the age of eighty-five when I'm way too old to be found attractive by any living, sane man, and then, my friend, I will lie in bed, and rise from bed, and lie in bed, and rise from bed...thinking there surely is no reason or way of escaping.
No. I sit on this window ledge, and I peer into nothing, and I love it. I want to feel nothing, and see nothing, and BE nothing forever. Just as long as I can have my friends waiting for me to fall.
"Jump!" the voice shouts again.
And now I know it's Chico, because I can see Harpo and his mouth isn't moving. Like a storm without thunder; he's waving at me, and his mouth is open, but I see nothing but the light in his eyes, for his hand -- the movement of his hand -- begins to blur in the rain. It's falling harder, and softer; harder and softer. It's so bipolar I laugh and think what funny poetry the moon is made of cheese and the rain is bipolar. If I repeated the joke aloud, no one else would find it funny, and they'd lock me in the sanitarium and through away the rubber key.
Does it bounce?
Maybe the bars are made of yarn, and the key is a pair of crochet needles...
While pondering this nonsense, the light in Harpo's eyes shift from joy and adventure, to a shade of pure agitation with me.
I grasp the ledge, and nearly do a backflip. Then lower myself onto a drain pipe, and begin to shimmy down. One hand lets go, and I tell myself this is nothing, this is a cake walk! I climb ladders twenty feet high to my diving board every night, and twice on Saturdays, and surely I can do this! I'm made of sugar too, and I can do anything!
The funny thing about sugar is, it doesn't withstand the rain. Soon I'm two hands off the pipe, hanging on with my thighs, and staring down into a storm drain. I can see all the rain ending into one finite square. A bird's eye view of people marching in long gray lines straight into a pool of rushing water, swirling further into an exit, of froth and madness, waiting to be swallowed.
If I had my accordion, I'd probably dive into the pool, and wait for the applause.
Hanging from the drainpipe -- both hands again -- my bedsheet dress flows about in the wind, and then whips off completely. If I felt more like myself, I would blush. But I just keep crawling down the building, backwards in the rain.
When I reach the bottom naked, Harpo hands me my dress without looking.
"You're a gentleman," I say.
And Chico only laughs.
***
The three of us make a run for the nearby Church, just as I'm sure I hear sirens and see search lights, but no: on second thought, I hear nothing and see nothing. For a moment, I even wonder if maybe I'm blind and deaf. Too much rain. Too much worry. One too many dives into a pool of water from a jump twenty feet high.
I've never once hit the stage, yet now, as we're all running, and out of breath, huffing, as we climb the church steps, I seem to have the vaguest recollection of a stage meeting my face. A horrible SMACK! And then nothing but the smell of wood and shoes, and Groucho's cigar breath.
I remember Harpo's lips meeting mine, and surely I was dreaming! Harpo Marx would never kiss me...I'm not good enough for him. He could have any beautiful girl in any two-bit town -- or any two-bit girl in any beautiful town! -- but not me. Not stupid me. Not 'One Trick' Iris.
IRIS BEND -- THE AMAZING ACCORDION PLAYER! -- WILL NOW HIGH DIVE HEADFIRST INTO A SMALL POOL OF WATER, ALL WHILE STILL PLAYING HER FAVORITE INSTRUMENT AND SONG! KEEP YOUR EYES AND EARS ON THE STAGE, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! THIS WILL BE HER GREATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT YET! DIVING BLINDFOLDED, FROM A TWENTY-FOOT DROP! KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE STAGE...SHE'S A DAREDEVIL! AND SHE'S NOT GONNA TAKE NOOOOOO FOR AN ANSWER!
The loud-speaking announcer from my Circus Days is forever ingrained into my ears, mind, and memory. A refreshing change is Harpo Marx who is always so quiet. So wonderful, and thoughtful. God, this man could make a career of being so quiet, wonderful, and thoughtful. Funny how it all seems to work itself out that way...
Funny how all of this seems so far away, yet so familiar.
I ask Harpo if he remembers my name and from his shirt pocket produces an Iris flower. I try to smell it, but he eats it. Chewing; then blows a bubble in my face.
"Can I have a piece of that?" I ask.
He pulls from his pocket another Iris, and hands it to me...I bite it, and chew it, and wouldn't you know, it's not trick gum; all I blow are a couple of powdery, bitter flower petals from my tongue!
"Tastes like death," I say.
Chico grumbles.
"And just how do you know what death tastes like?" he asks.
I've tasted it. I'm not sure how, but I have.
Suddenly this church has taken on an eerie microscopic quality seen only in silent film, where the camera man singles out a lone girl, and lets the frame close in around her -- an innocent little ingenue holding a bouquet of measly flowers; she smiles demurely like a cat who's yet to realize life holds nothing more for her than chasing rats and running from wolves.
"An Iris of a Camera!" I say. And I think the brothers exchange words, but I can't hear them. Chico dismisses me with a wave of his hand, and storms down the Church steps. Harpo grabs me by the arm, and pulls me past doors I thought would be locked, but are unlocked, and the church smells like the hard candy found only at the bottom of my Grandmother's purse.
_________________________
The smell of Vi-O-Let Life Savers, and twenty different types of fresh cut flowers, two days in need of watering. An overwhelming bouquet of creatures caught somewhere in a post-life state of beautiful yet dead. A frozen limbo of wilted, and soon to be rotting...I nearly sneeze. Yet I enjoy the smell of my Grandmother's favorite candy. I can almost see the pews filled with old ladies, all holding their white purses, eating Life Savers and Butterscotch, and other ribbon and mint candies.
Cinnamon. I smile at the scent of Christmas, but Harpo is too busy undressing. There, at the birth of the pews, Harpo stands on the floor of Mahogany, shaking his wet hat at me.
Chico had used his jacket as an umbrella; running about like a bat whose wings had turned backwards and were resting upon his head. Poor Harpo, to keep dry, had depended upon his nice hat, and now it's soaked. Ruined.
But Harpo keeps shaking it -- to be playful: in my direction -- and then inspecting it, as if by magic, any moment now, it will not only be desiccated, but restored to a state of brand new. And neither of us will be surprised!
I'm getting my own performance. HARPO MARX AND HIS NEW OLD HAT TRICK.
And despite wanting to escape this well-lit entranceway of flickering candles teasing green stained-glass, I enjoy the sight of him...
He looks like a dark-haired Cherub. All pink-cheeked and wide-eyed. Cupid, before time remade him. Not a fat-faced infant, but a fit, lean man. A Peter Pan who has escaped Never Land because he learned he could make love to Wendy.
I'm shivering. My once wet, once dry, and now wet again bedsheet dress is clinging tight to my body, and I might as well be back in the sanitarium, strapped to a bed, because we're not moving.
I grab the hat from Harpo and toss it down the aisle, amongst the invisible congregation.
An unseen funeral.
_______________________
Harpo frowns for the first time since we scaled the building. He nods towards the altar, and I follow him. Walking down the aisle together. A wooden strip, surrounded by soft green carpet. I want to curl up like a lamb on a field and take a rest. A nap beneath a pew; beneath the feet of the invisible old ladies. They'll ask me, Wouldn't I like some hard candy before sleeping? And I'll suck on something sweet, and when I wake up, it'll be tangled in my hair, and I'll have cavities.
I scurry to catch up with Harpo.
He seems quite determined to grab his hat and find a darker exit.
I don't know why, but I can't seem to shake the feeling we're being watched.
I look out amongst the pews again, and there they are: all laid out in straight red lines, like cat scratches on a child's knee.
Mahogany and empty.
I wonder who is mourning here? The invisible old ladies, sucking on hard candy, their purses heavy on their laps, knees shaking, they blow their noses into lacy handkerchiefs, and drop 'em to the floor to grab the collection plate with empty hands, and in drops the dime. In drops the nickel. In drops whatever the little old ladies can afford. Perhaps a Life Saver! Here, Jesus, have a butterscotch! Have my last peppermint. The collection plates rolls around, and each lady goes back to mourning, and how inappropriate to take up a collection during a funeral. Don't they know these little old ladies are grieving? Grieving the loss of their youth, and life, and every ounce of energy they extended on this earth has vanished except for their ghostly shapes upon these pews. I can hear their noses sniffling. Their knuckles cracking. Candy wrappers opening, crinkling. I can hear the metallic pomp of coins falling into a dish. Candy clattering against false teeth. False hopes, and unfilled wishes of ever leaving this place! Of rising from the pews and marching out on their own funeral. The last day of the last day of the last day.
They spend it watching flowers rot.
We reach the altar.
Harpo picks up his hat and folds it into a neat square, and slides it into his pant's pocket. He then removes his long jacket, and drapes it inside-out over the podium. I watch as he unbuttons a secret panel of lining...inside are a few leftover props.
"I guess it's hard to get 'em all out," I whisper.
Harpo nods.
I think he's less irritated with me now. A slight smile, and his eyes look less tired.
Perhaps Harpo is gearing up for a grand finale. God will remove the last souls from this room, as Harpo removes the remaining props from his jacket, and builds for us a tandem bicycle out of flatware, so we can escape this cave of candle wax and hard candy. Holy Bibles. I wonder if our antics aren't upstaging this invisible procession? Harpo's hat trick, and my sudden need to tug the top of this waterlogged dress...I don't know if a church is like a theatre; if the lobby or the altar is the front or the back; the lobby, where Harpo left watermarks on the walls and curtains -- where I left pools of water, foot-shaped pools, blood-red, on the Mahogany strip; they won't dry, because the floor is already in place. The wood is dead! It can't absorb...the flowers can't drink...the ghosts can't leave. We're interrupting the sanctity of this quiet institution with our dripping wet attire, at the altar. And if a church is like a theatre, a flashing sign outside would attract some living costumers of the non-Vaudeville variety. Come one, come all, to watch the latest feat of magic performed by a Preacher! He'll save your soul, and leave it glued to a pew...
Harpo quits rifling through his jacket, and hands it to me: eyeing my body; the near see-through wet bedsheet.
I feel like we're playing a perverse game of Sunday School Charades!
Taking the hint, and his jacket, I climb the steps on the right side of the altar, and weasel my way through the choir pit.
I turn to wave, to let him know I've found a place to change, but either Harpo isn't here, or I can't see him.
A disappearing act...
________________________
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