An Introduction From Donald

 

‘Where my story ends, his begins…’

 

Actually: my story begins years earlier, but nobody cares about that.  Nobody cares much about after either.  It’s that moment exactly everyone seems concerned with.  A man’s entire life defined by one instant.  I’ve had to wrestle with that one day all the rest of my days.  The calendar might as well not have existed, as far as I was concerned.  As years passed, and life took its toll, I never forgot that incident.  I don’t even know how it happened…  

It was five thirty at night.  I was a twenty-three year old grad student at Cal-Poly Tech, making a left turn at the intersection of US 46 and US 41.  I was a nobody driving a nothing car.  I would’ve given anything to be James Dean riding around in a Porsche.  Well: not that night, I guess.

Before I knew what was happening, the sound of squealing tires, twisting metal, and shattered glass pierced the twilight.  My head jerked back, then came slamming down on the steering wheel.  It was over so quickly.  I thought I broke my nose.  I couldn’t hear anything.  In hindsight, I probably had symptoms of a concussion that went undiagnosed.  It was such a violent collision, and I was so groggy: but I was relatively unscathed, hoping the passengers of the other car could make the same claim.  Instead, what I saw haunts me to this very day; peering through the fragmented windshield onto a horror no man should ever bear witness to.  

My ears popped, all I could hear was a ringing reverberating through my skull; but I could see the wailed moans of anguish spewing forth from the mouth of the man riding in the passenger seat of the other car involved in the accident.  Turning my disoriented gaze from him to the individual reaping his howls of woe, I did not recognize the driver of the vehicle.  All I saw was his head thrown back, tilted to his left, a bone sticking out of the right side of his neck.  The passenger leaned over, taking the driver’s head in his hands as he cried and shouted into the desert sky.  He was screaming at the man with the broken neck to wake up: but he wouldn’t. 

There was a film crew there to photograph the whole thing.  The two cars were in a caravan on their way up to Salinas for a big road race.  Big story, apparently; a piece about some ‘up-and-coming’ actor.  He was pronounced ‘Dead On Arrival’.  Three people were involved in that crash, and he was the only one who died. 

He was a god to some; still is.  Worshipped by legions of fans all over the world: a cult following (literally).  Girls and boys loved him.  He was a role model for an entire generation.  Dubbed ‘The First American Teenager’, his legacy lives on today because of how he died.  His legend only grows as time goes on, cementing him as an everlasting figure in history; an immortal.  

Even after his death his image has tremendous marketability.  People have stolen his tombstone on more than one occasion, unable to let him go.  Pieces of his car are on display in a museum someplace.  Hell: they’ll still be writing books about him long after I’m gone.  Elvis even idolized him; used to tell his friends how much he wanted to be like him.  He’s in ‘The Hall of Fame’.  It’s him, Elvis, and Marilyn on the ‘Mount Rushmore of Pop Culture’.  Me: I’m a footnote in history… 

Doesn’t matter what I did.  Inherited my father’s electrical business, and turning it into a multi-million dollar company means nothing.  Married twice, widowed once, with three kids, one stepchild, and five grandchildren.  Even my own family looked at me the way everyone else did: as someone who’s not as good as him.  It’s an impossible standard.  There will never be another him.       

You, or James Dean: who would you rather be?  99.99% of the time the answer is going to be ‘James Dean’-except that night, of course.  I don’t think my own parents were happy I was the one who survived.  My misfortune became their shame.  They said they loved me, but it was never the same afterwards.  Nothing was.

Isn’t that the guy who killed James Dean?

The awards continued after his death: the first to receive an Academy Award nomination posthumously for his work in ‘Eden’, then again for his role in ‘Giant’; countless ‘Sexiest Stars in Film History’, or ‘Greatest Movie Star of All-time’ lists… Those who knew him will never forget, and those who didn’t will always remember.  An unfinished life…

I got a scratch on my nose, and hitchhiked home, never speaking publicly about the accident.

They say a car like his, that low to the ground, at that speed, at that time of day would’ve been difficult for anyone to see-almost impossible.  They also say the car was cursed; but people didn’t want to hear that.  All they heard was James Dean was dead.

I was glad to hear the car was haunted.  I hoped it might spare me some blame.  People became obsessed, hounding and pestering me incessantly.  They wanted to know every detail.  There was no escaping it.  People wanted answers, and nothing I said satisfied them.  I don’t even know why I’m talking to you!  Why me?  Why did I have to be the one?

But I don’t expect you to feel sorry for me.  To like me is to hate America: and you don’t hate America, do you?  It’s like the universe traded one life for another that night, and the wrong one lived.  I wish it had been me who died, knowing how every day of the rest of my life would feel.  He was the actor, but I was the one who pretended to be someone he’s not: someone who didn’t have to live with the fact that he robbed the world of its greatest icon.  And I never even saw the car… 

​

Coming Home

 

The Indiana scenery races by as I speed down the railway, looking out the window of a train taking me back home.  Home.  Does that word even have meaning now?  I don’t have a home.  The only home I ever had is riding back with me in a coffin, buried away behind a bunch of boxes in the cargo car.  My dad doesn’t want me.  He shipped me away, making me someone else’s problem.  I’m all alone.  How is a nine-year-old supposed to feel traveling half-way across the country, his dead mother his only companion?  These people I’m going to stay with aren’t family, they’re strangers.  

The seats are littered with unfamiliar, unfriendly faces.  I try feeling better, but it’s useless.  When the conductor comes by to punch a hole in my ticket he asks if I’m here by myself.  I don’t answer.  He looks at my ticket.  ‘Indiana?’ he says.  ‘That’s a long trip from here.  What are you going to Indiana for, son?’

I wanted to tell him to mind his own business.  I wanted to tell him I’m not his son.  I was nobody’s son!  I wanted to tell him my mother was dead, and I was sad, and I was scared.  I wanted to tell him all these things, but I said nothing. Shifting my eyes away from his alien face, I turned my attention to the landscape sprinting past, finding solace in the nature flying by.  I didn’t have to speak to nature to appreciate it.  It’s splendor spoke volumes to me.  I didn’t say a single word to a single soul on that trip.  It’d been a long time since I said anything to anyone…

I was going to miss California.  Indiana might be a ‘good place for a boy to grow up’, but it doesn’t compare to California.  We moved there after my father got a new job, living right on the beach.  It was the first time I’d ever seen the ocean.  It was awe inspiring and humbling at the same time, even for someone as young as me; thinking how the sea could swallow me whole if it wanted to.  I was happy there: in the beginning, anyways…

The end was mostly spent standing in a doorway, looking in as doctors prodded and probed the matriarch of my family.  I watched as they shook their heads, hearing words like ‘terminal’, ‘untreatable’, ‘incurable’, and ‘cancer’; and there was nothing I could do about it.  There was nothing anyone could do.  All we could do was sit, and watch her die.

People I was told were relatives came to help facilitate the transition.  I didn’t recognize any of them.  I didn’t know who these people were, this ‘family’ of mine.  It’d been years since I’d seen any of them, and when I do, it’s in a time of crisis.  They tried comforting me, but there was no consolation.  I’d resigned myself to the fact my mom was leaving me forever, and nothing could change that.  The sooner I accepted it, the better off I would be.

Her last few months were spent in bed.  I always hesitated before going into her room.  Like I would break her if I did.  Weak as she was, she always laughed at my indecisiveness.  I’d go in, and listen as she told me what a ‘good boy’ I was; and that she’d always love me.  I’d sit as she read me passages from the Bible: ‘The Lord is my shepherd…’  

I didn’t know what to do.  I didn’t know what to say.  This wasn’t real.  This wasn’t really happening.  My eyes would well up, and my lips would start trembling: but nothing ever came out.  In her final days I made sure, whenever I saw her, I gave her a hug, never knowing when it would be the last time.  I didn’t know how to express it verbally, but I wanted to make sure she knew how much I loved her.  Keeping vigil by her bedside every night, I wasn’t there when she passed.  I was told to ‘go outside and play’ with my friends: ‘It’ll be good for you...’  What would’ve been ‘good’ for me would have been being with her at the end. 

My father told me my grandparents suggested I come live with them in Indiana.  They said I could stay with my aunt and uncle, and their little boy.  That was supposed to make me feel better about him giving me up (although: I suspected he used that rationale for his own sake).  I remember staring at him in disbelief.  Was the first act my father was committing after my mother’s death really shipping me off to live with people I didn’t know?  I couldn’t comprehend what was happening.  My world was spinning around me at nine years old!  One minute I was being informed my mother was deceased, the next I was being put on a train by my father to go live with my aunt and uncle in Fairmont, Indiana. 

He didn’t even say ‘I love you’ when I left.  ‘You’ll be better off,’ he told me.  ‘They can take care of you better than I can,’ he said, before loading me onto the locomotive; the sole overseer of my mother’s casket as he sent her body back too.  It was hard to believe he actually once loved her, or that he ever loved me.

Apparently, the two of them were madly in love when they first met.  I later found out my mother was pregnant with me before she and my father got married.  That sort of thing was even more taboo then than it is now.  It was a scandalous affair, yet: the two of them stayed together.

My father was a good provider to my mother and I.  However, he was not what you would call ‘nurturing’.  He had a good, steady job at the hospital, which afforded us a certain high standard and quality of living.  Whatever my father lacked in tenderness, my mother more than made up for with care, and attentiveness. 

My mother was the one who encouraged me to get into acting.  She encouraged me to get into all sorts of creative arts.  Under her supervision, I was exposed to drawing, painting, singing, and even dancing.  She always enjoyed watching me perform.  Those times I was on stage or in front of a crowd were the happiest I ever saw her.  She always sat in the front row, never missing a performance.  

I continued my artistic activities in California.  In Indiana I performed in churches; in California, I was performing in auditoriums.  It was exhilarating being on stage in front of all those people, all eyes on you.  I loved it.  I loved that she loved it.  It was something we shared; something that brought us closer together.  My mother was my best friend.  She was the one who raised me: my father was simply present during parts of it. 

It got flatter and flatter the further I went, saying ‘goodbye’ to the mountains long ago.  It was a different sort of pretty out here.  At least the sun was shining today.  The past few days it’d been raining.  Looking out the window, I see streaks of sunlight trying to break through the clouds. 

I kept to myself that trip.  My dad spared no expense in getting rid of me, so I had a large cabin of my own.  I didn’t leave once: not to go to the bathroom, not to eat, not to do anything. I hoped my body would consume itself.  

I wanted to see my mother, but I was too afraid.  Soon she was going to be six feet under, and I’d never get to see her again, or touch her, or hold her, or tell her I loved her.  I just wanted to see my mother one last time!  She was my mother, damn it!  Mine!  

Numb, it felt like I was watching a canvas scroll by: like someone had painted it with a brush, rather than these objects existing in reality.  But mostly: I slept.  I didn’t want to be awake.  It hurt too much to be awake.  What I wanted was to go to sleep, and never wake up.  Sleep away the pain: but there was no escaping it.  My dreams were ravaged by evil thoughts; nightmares so terrifying they woke me from my slumber in cold sweats.  They seeped so deep into my subconscious it would be decades before I rid myself of them. 

I was having a nervous breakdown at the age of nine.  Still grieving for my mother, on the way back to Indiana I was in shock.  Everything was happening so quickly.  Things moving so fast.  I didn’t want to go back to Indiana.  I was happy when we moved; so were my parents.  It was a new opportunity for all of us.  

The first year was great.  I’ll never forget that first year.  We went swimming in the ocean, walked on the boardwalk, hiked up mountains…you couldn’t do this in Indiana!  And In Indiana, everybody knew who we were.  In California, nobody did.  It was a fresh start.  My folks got to get away from the stigma of being the couple who had a child out of wedlock, and I was no longer viewed as the ‘bastard’ child.  Things were great!  Then mom got sick, and things weren’t so fun.  

My aunt and uncle were there to meet me at the station, leaving my cousin at home.  The three of us stand by as they unload the casket from the train.  Holding in my tears, I don't wanting to make a scene.  Staring at the hunk of wood sitting on the platform beside me, I caress its sleek polish, wishing it were my mother’s face, and I'm stroking her soft skin.  She rests in peace mere inches away from me, and my mind is in utter turmoil.

I hardly know these people I am bequeathed unto.  They seem just as nervous as I do about the situation.  These ‘Midwest types’ weren’t too in-touch with their feelings.  Emotions, and that sort of behavior, are frowned upon.  None of us know what to say on the ride to the house; my new home.  The last thing I remember saying to anyone was ‘yes’ at the train station when my father asked if I understood what was going to happen to me. 

They did their best to reassure me.  ‘We got a room fixed up all nice for you.  Your cousin’s real excited you’re coming to stay with us.  We are too…’

As we pull up the driveway my heart pounds so much I think it’s going to burst out of my chest.  When the car comes to a halt, I sit there, motionless, not wanting to get out.  Getting out means it was happening: and this wasn’t really happening.  To their credit, they didn’t rush me, letting me come out when I was good and ready.  

Hours passed, and night had fallen before I opened that car door, stepping foot onto their property.  Leaving the lights on for me, I could see their silhouettes through the curtains.  Shadowy figures going about their daily routine.  Periodically I’d catch them pulling back the curtains over the course of the evening, checking to see if I was still inside the car.  I could see my aunt serving dinner, catching a whiff.  It smelled so good, and I was so hungry, having not eaten for days.  

Gingerly, I placed the tippy toes of my shoe on the hard, Indiana soil.  The first time I’d stepped foot on Indiana land in over three years was at the station.  When you’re a kid, you have no concept of what it means to return to your ‘roots’. Your ‘roots’ are your parents, and you think wherever they are is where ‘home’ is.  I passed a porch swing as I entered the household.  I’d spent many hours on that swing, rocking away.  The stairs to the house creak with each step.  Holding the banister tightly I made my way up to the landing.  The banister was strong, and the landing sturdy.  I stood outside that front door for what seemed like an eternity.  For a moment I stared straight ahead, thinking if I looked hard enough I could see what my future held.  But there was no telling.  I had no idea of knowing what would happen to me inside those walls.  Then, looking up, I directed my gaze towards the heavens, never seeing stars so bright.  I thought about God, about life.  I thought about a lot of things: but finally came to the conclusion I wasn’t going to get all the answers to those questions outside on the porch that night.  These ‘answers’ or ‘truths’ or whatever you call them, would unveil themselves to me over time.  

For now, my life was what lay behind the door of this quaint, Indiana farmhouse.  ‘Winslow Farms’, to be exact.  Three hundred and fifty acres of the finest farming land you could ask for.  I could hear the commotion come to an abrupt halt as I pushed back the door.  As the house became more exposed, its interior seemed inviting enough.  There was a warmth to the house.  Framed pictures and paintings hung from the walls; runner carpets lined the floors.  Dirty work boots waiting to be put to use in the fields early the next morning, and a small table with a bowl, keys, and some other tiny objects resting on it sat by the entryway.  

At the end of the hallway was the kitchen, and I could see my aunt drying a large bowl with a dishtowel. 

‘You finally made it in.  Hungry?’

We both knew I was, but I’ll be damned if I was going to say it.  

‘I just finished putting the leftovers away, but I can make you a plate?’ she asked.

I was too introverted to even look at her.

‘I’ll make you a plate, and you can eat it if you like.’  She vanished from my view, re-emerge seconds later, following the sounds of a refrigerator door, and cabinet drawers opening.  The clatter of silverware, and the clanking of plates.  I stood as she set me a place at the table, then walked away.  ‘Make yourself at home.’

The smell of the food was irresistible, the aroma luring me in.  Creeping forwards, I examine my new surroundings.  I saw a living room, and a couch with a floral print.  Two chairs adorn the setting: a wooden rocking chair, and a leather armchair.  An oak coffee table, with a dark stain sits in the center, and a shelf with various books & artifacts on display.  A pillow with ‘God Bless This House’ embroidered on it lay on the floral covered sofa.  A staircase leads up to where I assumed my room would be, not telling me where it was, just that they fixed one up ‘real nice’ for me.  Nothing struck me particularly out of the ordinary.  There wasn’t anything exceptional about the place, but it did seem like a nice place to live…so that was a good start.  

My aunt makes a good dinner that really hits the spot.  Each bite tastes better than the next.  Eating it warmed me.  I needed a good meal, and couldn’t have asked for anything better.  Roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, biscuits, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and gravy.  I suspected they didn’t feast like this every night, and were making a special exception on account of it being my first night at the house-but that was all right with me.  I can’t remember a meal ever tasting that good.  I felt guilty enjoying it as much as I did, given the circumstances.  I felt guilty liking this dinner more than any my mother had prepared for me.  For a split second I’d forgotten the chain of events leading me to sitting in this kitchen, in this unassuming country house, on a vast piece of farmland in Indiana, USA.  That was unforgivable to me.  

How could I forget her so easily?  

My father was able to forget me, apparently, without much difficulty.  Are all the relationships we develop in our lifetimes fleeting: even our parents?  Was she as important as I’m making her out to be?  Is she as vital as I’m giving her credit for?  Did I need her?  Will I forget her entirely one day?  

‘How’s dinner coming?’  My uncle interjects, derailing my train of thought with his question.  My clean plate speaks for itself.  

‘We’re happy you’re here with us, Jimmy.’  It’s the first time anyone has called me ‘Jimmy’ in years.  My father was too formal for any nicknames, and my mother too proper.  I was always known to them as ‘James’.  I think their formality was compensation for having me before they were officially married.  They wanted us to be viewed, and thought of, as the ‘All-American Family’.  

My uncle, on the other hand, didn’t get caught up in all those ‘formalities’.  They held no place here on the farm.  To him, I was ‘Jimmy’.  He treated me as he would any other, orphaned or not, and I appreciated him for that.  He didn’t treat me like the nephew forced upon them: he treated me like one of his own.

‘Want me to show you your room?’

They really did spruce up the place.  Nothing fancy: bed, desk, dresser; but it was a roof over my head in a place that wanted me.  It was almost as nice as my room in California.  I wondered what my father was doing, but quickly vanquished those frivolous thoughts from my mind as I put my luggage down in one of the corners of my room.  I didn’t feel like unpacking.  I didn’t feel like doing anything. 

‘You have yourself a good night’s sleep, okay, Jimmy.  You need anything, you don’t hesitate to knock,’ my uncle said before closing the door.  

Once it was shut, the reality of the situation hit me very overwhelmingly.  There was no turning back.  Now I lived in Indiana, and this was my home.  These people were family & strangers at the same time, and I wasn’t yet comfortable enough talking to them about the storm brewing inside me.  Just a boy, I was ignorant on how to articulate the complexity of emotions running through me.  Too many feelings burgeoning underneath my skin, I couldn’t recognize them all.  I didn’t know how to cope with the stress and anxiety I was experiencing.  How well adept is anyone at dealing with the loss of one’s parent?  I don’t know if it was necessarily my age contributing to my plight. 

Left on my own to grieve, I couldn’t even mourn the loss of my mother with my father.  He acted as if I hadn’t lost something dear to me as well: like he was the only one suffering!  It made me feel insignificant my own father couldn’t be bothered with me.  

The first night I wept until the sun came up.  My aunt and uncle came to the door on separate occasions to check and see if I was all right.  Quieting my sobs I let them know I knew they were there, but didn’t want them in the room with me.  I wanted to be left alone.  It hadn’t hit me on the train.  There, I was in transit; there my mother wasn’t going to be laid to rest the next morning; there it still seemed like a trick my mind was playing on me.  Sitting in this bedroom, the gravity of the situation crashing down on me, I knew this was real.  Only a boy then, I don’t know if I would’ve acted any differently now.  A mother is inarguably the most important figure in a person’s life.  Your mother is the woman who birthed you.  When you take her loss into consideration, and factor in a father that doesn’t want anything to do with you: you feel like you have no one.  I’m left to go through this ordeal by myself.  I sit on the bed in my new room, in my new house, with my new family, and cry for the life I once knew.

​

​