A Carlin Home Companion (8 page)

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When we moved to the Palisades, I quickly made friends with my next-door neighbor, Amanda, and her friend Tom. Amanda was the daughter of the guy who worked for the National Security Council. She was a few years older than me, had short blond hair, a perky, flirty personality, and was wicked smart. Although her father worked for the Nixon administration, and her family looked like a “normal” family on the outside, it was just as strange as mine. When I met her, one of her brothers had just returned home from some dustup in Washington, DC. Her father had pulled some strings to get him out of a scrape with the law, or maybe it was the mafia; either way, he was now hiding out on the West Coast. The first thing he did to repay his father was to spell out “Fuck Nixon” on his chest with masking tape and fall asleep in the sun. Once his sunburn set in, he took Amanda and me down the hill for ice cream at Baskin-Robbins in the village. Before he got out of the car, he took his shirt off. He and my dad got along very well.

Yet another brother was also a nice guy, but he had no heels. I was told that a few years before, he'd had a brain operation in which they'd put him in ice, and during the procedure he'd ground down his heels to nothing. I was fine with the big scar on his head; it was his lack of heels that always gave me the willies. To round off the family, Amanda's mom had some kind of degenerative neck problem, which limited her mobility, and so she got to stay in bed all day wearing a neck brace and watching TV. I thought she was the luckiest person in the world.

Amanda's dad, thankfully, was rarely home. He scared me. Not only did he work for the government, but one day we sneaked into his office and found some books that contained horrific photos of dead soldiers who had been torn apart by shrapnel. I may have been able to say the “Seven Dirty Words” in my house, but my dad had always sheltered me from violent films and images. The pictures in those books shattered my innocence. But her dad wasn't all bad—when he came home from his “business trips” abroad, he would bring us beautiful gifts. Most of them came from a faraway place called Iran. Looking back on it now, I realize that he must have been hanging out with the shah and propping up the regime. When the tension in my house got to be too much for me, I'd go over to Amanda's. They may have been a strange family, but at least there wasn't a whole lot of yelling and screaming in their house. One person's weirdness is another person's refuge, I guess.

Tom, my other best friend, lived down the hill, and was really cute. He had sun-bleached hair down to his shoulders, freckles, glasses, and a great smile. I had a crush on him, but didn't know how to have a crush on him because I was a tomboy. Or maybe I was a tomboy because I didn't know how to have a crush on him? Either way, any glimmer I felt of wanting him to kiss me I shoved far away, deep inside my psyche. Focusing on tricking out our skateboards, collecting Wacky Packages (funny stickers that made fun of consumer brands, they came with bubble gum), or playing with our Corgi Toys (high-end British die-cast toy cars) was way easier. The best time I ever had with Tom was the weekend my dad taped
New Year's Rockin' Eve
on the
Queen Mary
in the fall of 1973 (it had been retired to Long Beach in 1967). Tom came with us on the ship for the whole weekend. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Not because I got Tom all to myself or because we had the run of the entire
Queen Mary
, or even because we were hanging out with Dick Clark, Billy Preston, and the Pointer Sisters, nope. It was because there was an onboard toy store devoted to selling Corgi cars from the UK. Talk about your sexual sublimation. As Freud used to say, “When is a cigar not a cigar?” When it's a Corgi car.

As I approached my twelfth birthday, my body made the inevitable changes—hair in places I'd never seen it, painful little mounds on my chest, and emotions that felt more like demonic possession than something human. Although Amanda was only two years older than me, her body was way ahead of mine. She was fourteen going on thirty. She already had boobs and hips. While I actively hid my budding sexuality under layers of oversize T-shirts, Levi cords, and Wallabee shoes, Amanda's was front and center. When we were around boys, she just knew how to work it, which made me feel even more invisible than I already felt in my “boyish” body.

Amanda fully embraced her budding womanhood, and did what she could to show me the way. She showed me how to shave my legs, put on eye shadow, and how to use the waterspout in the bathtub for more than just filling it up with water. But still, it wasn't an easy transition for me. And my mom didn't make it any easier. When she saw that I had shaved my legs, she flew into a rage.

“You're too young to shave your legs! Now you're stuck having to do it for the rest of your life! Why didn't you come to me?!”

I broke down in tears, even more ashamed of my body now. I stormed into my room to cry and sulk. But really I was just so mad at her for being mad at me. I wanted to say to her, Sorry, Mom—next time I start puberty, I'll make sure to check your calendar to see if there's an opening somewhere between you and Dad raging and you passing out on the couch.

After that encounter I kept any and all questions, curiosities, and anxieties I had about sex, boys, or my body to myself. The closest our family ever came to “the talk” was when I accidentally walked into my parents' bedroom and saw my dad walk out of the bathroom with an erection. Horror! That sight alone scared me off sex for another four years.

One of my biggest joys during those days was when Amanda and I choreographed skateboard ballets. Living on a steep hill made normal skateboarding rather treacherous. Luckily Amanda had a long and flat driveway—the perfect skateboard-ballet venue. One of our best was a lyrical modern piece we did to the Rolling Stones' “Angie.” While we crisscrossed the driveway, we streamed colorful scarves behind us. But the crowd favorite (the “crowd” being our parents) was the one we did to the Beatles' “Maxwell's Silver Hammer,” a rather silly romp. Although I loved doing them, I knew there was no future in skateboard ballet, so we turned to variety shows instead. Our tour de force, in the summer of 1974, was a three-ring circus/variety show starring Amanda, Tom, me, and my abundant stuffed-animal collection. We were clowns, acrobats, and had animal acts, too. Gunderilla, my blue-velvet-jumpsuit-wearing stuffed gorilla, stole the show. But of course he did! Who wouldn't, in a blue velvet jumpsuit?

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In the summer of 1973 the Carlins hit the road again. Something magical always happened when we went on the road together—all the friction, fighting, and frustration would just melt away. After my dad did a few gigs in New England, we rented a camper van and toured the area. Mom made us stop at every antique store in search of turn-of-the-century medicine bottles, and Dad loved to stop at historical monuments. After a week or so, we ended up in Vershire, Vermont, to visit Uncle Pat and Aunt Marlene. They now lived and worked at a private school/summer camp that catered to rich kids who just wanted to “turn on, tune in, and drop out,” but whose parents wouldn't let them. Everyone had long hair, wore tie-dyed shirts, and didn't care for authority. This was a perfect place for my uncle and aunt, since they themselves had definitely turned on, tuned in, and dropped out, and never much cared for authority to begin with. Aunt Marlene ran the kitchen, and Uncle Pat provided “security.” The Derek and the Dominos' song “Layla” reverberated throughout the main building. It must have been the only album that the campers had, because I don't remember any other song playing that entire summer. My cousin Dennis and I roamed the forest, learned to play mumblety-peg from the older campers, and bought Mountain Dews and Oh Henry! candy bars at the gas station down the road—the only place to buy anything for miles and miles.

My mom and dad headed out for more gigs, leaving me there for the rest of the summer. By the time they came back, I'd learned to ride a horse, play soccer, and helped write the end-of-summer play. But, my most vivid memory of that summer was seeing all the adults huddled around a little black-and-white TV eagerly watching a bunch of politicians yammer on and on about who-knows-what. Little did I know it was the Watergate hearings, and our parents' dreams were coming true—President Nixon would soon be disgraced and forced out of the White House. The summer of 1973 was rather perfect for all of us.

Another trip we made around that time was a bit less than perfect. Or maybe it was completely perfect. Dad had a bunch of dates in the lower Midwest, so we were flying from gig to gig in small single-engine planes. One day we were flying from Charleston, West Virginia, to somewhere in Pennsylvania. Mom sat in the copilot's seat, as she always did, because she told the pilot that she'd had some flying experience (she loved talking to the pilots, and they always let her fly the plane). Forty-five minutes into the flight, the plane started to get thrown around like it was made of balsa wood. We were skirting the edge of a huge thunderstorm. The pilot was doing his best to get around it, but the storm was faster than we were. The plane pitched and rolled violently, and I clutched my dad. He held me tight.

“We're okay,” my mom said as the pilot physically strained to keep the plane level. In a cheerful voice, Dad added, “It's just like a roller coaster. Up. Down. Right. Left. It can be fun if you let it.” I was not sold. I began to cry.

The pilot shouted, “Dammit, the radio's gone out!” He turned to my mom. “Take the controls.” Mom grabbed onto the controls as they moved about as if they had a mind of their own. The pilot worked on the radio. Mom battled to keep the plane steady. I hid my head in my dad's chest. I was sure we were going to die.

As the ferocious storm tossed us about, Dad held me tightly. “Everything's going to be okay. We're going to be perfectly fine,” he kept whispering in my ear. I think he was talking to himself as much as he was to me. After what felt like two and a half eternities, but was more like ten minutes, the pilot finally yelled, “Got it!” He'd fixed the radio. He grabbed his controls, and Mom and he flew through the rest of the storm. Finally a patch of blue sky emerged in the distance, and we flew toward it.

For the next week my mom could barely move her arms. She'd pulled every muscle in her upper body keeping that plane aloft. She saved our lives that day.

Now it was our turn to return the favor.

 

CHAPTER
SIX

This Is the End

B
Y THE SUMMER
of 1974
,
life in our house on Tellem Drive was like living in a hurricane. There were long periods of buffeting chaos punctuated by respites of calm and normalcy, as if the eye of the storm were passing overhead. Still, I always knew that the calm was temporary, and I'd better prepare for what came next.

Living with this level of uncertainty forced me to create a kind of expertise. Over the years I'd become adept at being able to tell what my parents had been smoking, drinking, and snorting just by looking at them: bloodshot eyes and cottonmouth—pot; pupils pinned and grinding jaw—coke; dark circles under the eyes and slurring speech—booze. When I'd walk in the door coming home after school, or in from playing, I would immediately assess the temperature of the space. Is it quiet? Do I need a knife to cut the tension in the air? Has Dad slept yet? Is Mom coming down, or just getting going? I was like the “addict whisperer.”

It really would have been much easier on me if my mom and dad had just had some kind of color-coded flags to raise on the front lawn so I could be warned before I walked in. A green flag might have signified that they were awake, talking to each other, and sober (well, sober-ish—I'm not sure either of them was ever fully sober during this period). A yellow flag might have meant that they were both asleep, which meant I could relax but should be on the alert for when they woke up (who knew what might have happened before they passed out?). A red flag would have been a warning to enter with great caution. Most likely I'd find my dad rearranging his vinyl album collection again (this time by genre, with alphabetical subheadings), which definitely meant that he was high on coke, had been up for quite a while (maybe days), and that Mom was most likely high, too. This would be a tinderbox ready to go up at any moment. Add to this mix the high probability that Mom was also drunk, and the flag waving outside the house should have been an upside-down picture of the Carlins, signifying, “Enter at your own risk—screaming, yelling, and object-throwing imminent.”

When Dad wasn't home, leaving Mom and me alone, I had additional criteria to assess the situation: Was Mom awake and cooking dinner? Excellent! Sigh of relief. Was she in her pajamas at 3:00
P
.
M
. and having coffee and a cigarette? Good—but the rest of the day could go either way. Best to be on my toes. Was she in her pajamas at 3:00
P
.
M
. having a scotch and a cigarette? Not so good. When my mom was day-drinking, the house was a minefield. I walked around precariously, avoiding too much in-depth conversation with her, fearing that any contact might create a spark that could ignite a shit storm. “How was school?” she'd ask.

“Fine. I'm going over to Amanda's. Be back later,” I'd answer, already out the door, escaping unscathed.

If she was in one of her wine-soaked dark moods, everything was an affront, or a sign of disrespect, or an excuse to bring back to full flame last night's argument or irritation. Little things like leaving my shoes in the living room, or having a messy bedroom, or a certain look on my face might be the trigger. It wasn't consistent or rational. It would inevitably lead to some resentment or bitterness about my dad. Because he and I were partners against her drinking, we both became the enemy.