A Ticket to the Circus (11 page)

He was a good boy most of the time—except, like his mother when
she was a little girl, he thought it was great fun to run off and hide from me. He did it once in McCain Mall in Little Rock, and I almost went crazy, chasing him through the mall, screaming his name, going into every store. I was about to call the police when I spotted a pair of small red tennis shoes peeking out from under a rack of dresses. I wanted to swat his little behind, but didn’t, I was so relieved to find him. I paid for my raising, as my mother used to say, and wished sometimes I could just put him on a leash. But he grew out of that, thank goodness, and I have nothing to complain about with either of my boys. Neither of my sons has ever said one bad word to me. The worst thing I ever said to them was “Don’t make me have to say ‘Don’t’ to you” or “I’m going to count to three, and then you had better stop that.” When he got older, Matthew once asked me what I would have done to them if they hadn’t stopped, and I answered, “I don’t know. I never got to three.”

People assume I came to New York with Norman because I was dying to get out of Arkansas, but that is simply not true. I loved it there, and was having the time of my life. True to my vow never to go steady again, I had a string of boyfriends, none of them serious. I was seeing a guy named Gary with long blond hair and a thick golden beard, who worked as a potter at Silver Dollar City, a theme park in the Ozarks, and did beautiful work on the wheel. He had a VW van with flowers and peace signs painted on it and a mattress in the back, which was most convenient for going camping. I was also seeing Dick, a lawyer who at thirty-two was the oldest man I had ever dated. He was divorced with two children, and was a golf nut who took me to the country club for nice dinners and formal dances. There was another potter, Bruce, who had studied with the famous Bernard Leach in England; John Cool; Wild Bill; and a few other guys. Some I slept with, at least a time or two, and some I didn’t. (It
was
the golden era of the late sixties and early seventies, after the pill was invented and before AIDS, when sleeping with someone was almost like shaking hands.)

I was a painter, so when my art class would start a new project, if I could, I would coerce my friends who were more adept in the other art mediums into giving a demonstration. I also made an arrangement with the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock, and they sent several artists a year to give workshops for free. (Bruce, mentioned and
pictured earlier, was one.) It was always a treat when one of them came. One well-known potter named Scott came to do a demonstration, and apparently I had neglected to tell Chip the date Scott would be there. He drove up in his flower-painted van and parked in the faculty parking lot. He was the walking definition of a hippie—a little on the heavy side, blond hair down to his shoulders, a mustache, and little dirty round glasses. His clothing had a few layers of clay built up on it, and I imagined the shirt and pants stood quietly upright beside his bed at night, waiting for him to step into them in the morning. The kids were awed by him, and were fascinated to see the way the clay effortlessly came to life through his hands. Then good ol’ Chip stormed into the room and yelled at me, “What’s this hippie doing here? I’m not going to have any dirty hippies in this school, you hear me? Why wasn’t I consulted about this?” He had seen the van in the parking lot and had rightly assumed I had something to do with it.

I tried to explain that Scott was sent by the Arts Center, which was paying him, and I had indeed told him at the beginning of the year that the Center would be sending a series of artists at no cost to us, but Chip wouldn’t listen. He was so worked up that his face got beet-red and he yelled at Scott to get his dirty hippie self out of there. I had never been so humiliated in my life. Scott gathered his stuff and left, totally shaken. Chip—dried spittle frothing at his mouth—gave me a warning that if I ever tried to bring someone like that in again, I would be fired.

That began an all-out war between us. From then on, he waited at my door in the morning, and if I was five minutes late, he chewed me out. He would pop into my class unannounced and just stand there glowering, sending out poison gas with his presence. I continued to wear jeans, which was a huge bone of contention, and when we had our big end-of-the-year show of the students’ work, he made me take out two or three fine drawings because they were nudes—even though all you could see was crossed arms and legs, a bit of a hip, a slight suggestion of a bosom. Fortunately for me, the assistant principal, Ellis, loved me and my work and stuck up for me. The superintendent, Harvey, also liked me, so they gave me another contract at the end of the year.

In my second year of teaching at RHS, the kids nominated me for Outstanding Teacher of the Year, and I won. It wasn’t that I was the
best teacher in the school—far from it—I just happened to teach the most fun subject. Chip tried his best to get the results thrown out, but he couldn’t, which I imagine made him gnash his teeth at night. I think the happiest moment in his life was when I walked in at the end of the school year in 1975 and announced I was leaving to move to New York.

T
here was another man I saw a bit of that year. Oddly enough, the same friend, Toni, who had introduced me to Edmond, called me up and said she was giving a fund-raiser for an attractive young man who was running for Congress. She said I should meet him. He was twenty-seven years old, single, and named Bill Clinton. I came in late, just as he began his talk, and he later said that when he saw me walk in, he forgot his speech—and then he forgot his name. I suspected he said that same thing to quite a few women, but it’s a good line, so why not use it? He was the embodiment of charisma: when he talked to you, he had the ability to make you feel like you were the only person in the room. He looked you in the eye and never once glanced over your shoulder to see who else was there. The only other person I have met who had charisma to that extent was Jackie Kennedy.

Bill came up to me after his speech, and after the introductions, compliments on the speech, and pleasantries, he told me I had the old-fashioned kind of beauty that should wear cameos and he was going to get me one. That never happened, but then I never thought it would. It was just party talk. I was lucky to get that much attention. I could see that everyone wanted his ear, so I just stayed for a short while and then started for the door. When he noticed that I was about to leave, he said “Wait a minute, Barbara,” walked me out to my car, and asked if he could see me again when he had more time. Why would I say no? To ensure he would remember, a day or two after we met, some of my students and I decorated one of our papier-mâché animals, a donkey, with a
VOTE FOR CLINTON
banner and took it to his headquarters, which greatly amused him.

He invited me a few times to campaign with him and his group in nearby towns, handing out cards and buttons and telling people why they should vote for him and clapping and cheering when he spoke. He was usually mobbed, mostly by women, but would always find a little time somewhere in the evening to talk to me alone. I stood next to him once in a receiving line, and was amazed at his memory for names and
faces. One young man shook hands with him and said, “I’m honored to meet you, Mr. Clinton.” Bill said, “I think we’ve met before.” The other guy said, “No, I don’t think so,” and Bill studied him for a minute and said, “You were at Boys State with me in 1963.” The guy was astounded; he really didn’t remember meeting him. During his speeches, Bill could pull facts and figures easily out of some file cabinet in his head.

He also had a trick of holding and caressing my hand while carrying on a conversation with someone else in a crowd, which made me feel like I had some kind of inside track. Occasionally he would invite me to sit beside him in the car on the way to or from an event, which was a big treat, since there were so many people vying for his attention. But we were never alone. He was sorry, he said, but he had no time to take me out on a regular date. Everything was always a campaign event. “That’s okay,” I said, and really it was. I was busy enough anyhow, and just liked being in his glow once in a while. Then one night, late and unannounced, the doorbell rang. It was him.

Years later in New York, after all the scandals broke, a man I knew socially who was in politics said, “I guess he slept with every woman in Arkansas except you, Norris.” “Sorry, Russ,” I replied, “I’m afraid he got us all.”

He was pretty hard to resist, I must say. So I didn’t, although I stopped campaigning with him. I hated talking to strangers, handing out cards, and trying to articulate the reasons why they should vote for Bill. I had no idea what to say when people pinned me down on his policies. Still, when he happened to be near Russellville, he would call. What we had was by no stretch of the imagination a romance, with his heavy campaign schedule and his seldom being alone except in the wee hours of the morning. He didn’t have the time, and I didn’t like being part of his pack of admirers. I was still dating several other men—mainly the lawyer at this point, who later became a judge—and while I had no idea how many other women Bill was seeing, it was apparent by the number of starry-eyed followers that there were a lot of them. I liked him immensely anyhow, and had no illusion I would become anything more than a friendly warm place for him to go from time to time, and frankly I didn’t want to be more. Even then, I knew he was going to be president one day. It didn’t take a psychic to see his prowess as a
speaker, his genuine concern for the people, and his huge ambition. Not to mention his love of women. And I wasn’t the girl for that gig.

On election night, he invited me to headquarters in Fayetteville to wait for the returns, and I went with several friends. There were, of course, a lot of women there, but there was one I’d never seen before who seemed to be running things, rushing around answering phones, obviously in charge. Her name was Hillary, she wore enormous thick glasses, no makeup, and rather ugly colorless baggy clothing. Someone whispered that she was
the
girlfriend. I said,
“Really?”
surprised at first, but as the evening wore on, I could see there was something extraordinary about her. She had an intelligence that none of the prettier girls in the room had. If I ever had a pang of jealousy, it was for that, when I knew he and she must have had a relationship that was fired by intellect. I would have so liked to be able to talk to him about world affairs and politics, or art or literature, or anything, really. I had the conceit that I had a good mind, too. But we frankly never talked much. He was always exhausted and wanted to catch two or three hours of sleep, or he was dashing out the door on his way somewhere and had no time. I would have liked just once to have a leisurely dinner and sit and talk, but that never happened.

He lost the election, by a smaller margin than had been expected, since his Republican opponent, John Paul Hammerschmidt, was popular and had been in office since 1963. But it was clear he was going to make it big sometime, somehow. He had the hunger. I had illustrated a little memoir called
Idols and Axle Grease
by my friend Francis Irby Gwaltney, and I inscribed a copy to Bill with something like, “I’ll see you in the White House.”

By that time, I’d started to feel used. The last time he’d called at two in the morning to see if he could drop by, I’d said no. I was done, and that was probably the final time we saw each other in that way.

He moved to Fayetteville with Hillary to teach in the law school, and we didn’t keep in touch too often, but when I decided to move to New York with Norman Mailer, I called him to say goodbye, and I don’t know how it happened—maybe he’d had to come to Russellville for another reason entirely—but he drove up into my yard just as I was walking out the door with my yellow luggage, on my way to the airport.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” he asked.

“No,” I said, and smiled, “but I’m doing it anyhow.”

He carried my suitcases to my car, gave me a little kiss, and I drove away.

Several years later he became governor, and we reconnected when I had a show of my paintings in a gallery in Little Rock. He and Hillary had dinner with Norman and me in a Chinese restaurant and they invited us to one of his inaugurations. (Norman wrote a speech for him, but he never used any of it. I was sorry; it really was pretty good.) Through the years, we would occasionally bump into each other at functions in New York, or he would drop a note or call just to keep in touch. Norman liked them, especially Hillary, and would have supported her in the presidential primaries if he had lived. He said she had earned it. I still consider Bill and Hillary friends, if distant ones.

I
debated whether or not to include this next part, but I finally decided I needed to talk about one of the worst moments in this otherwise happy time, one that has colored my life over the years in small ways I may never be totally aware of. Maybe I just hope there is the off chance that the man in question will read this and understand, if he is capable of understanding, what kind of damage he willfully inflicted. It is something that happens to an astonishing number of women one way or another. You know what I’m talking about.

The older brother of one of my girlfriends, who lived out of town, was home visiting his family, and my friend invited me to their house for a barbecue. I hardly knew her brother, as he was several years older than us, but it sounded like fun. I don’t know if my friend was thinking to fix us up, but I had no thought of romance with this guy. He wasn’t my type at all, and I thought of it as just a low-key dinner with their family, all of whom I’d known since I was a child. She said her brother would pick me up, which was fine.

We had a nice time at the barbecue, although I spent hardly any time talking to the brother, and then it began to get late and I said I needed to go home. It was a Friday and Matthew was spending the night at my parents’ so I could sleep late the next morning, and the brother drove me home. I got out of the car as soon as we hit my driveway. I didn’t want to sit with him in the dark or make him think there was more to the evening than there was, but he said, “I’ll walk you to the door.” I said, in a friendly voice, “Don’t bother. I know the way,” but he got out anyhow and accompanied me, holding my elbow. It felt a little creepy all of a sudden, like I heard the music that swells in a horror movie to warn you something bad is about to happen, and I wanted to get inside quickly. I didn’t want him to try to kiss me, so I said, “Well, thanks for the nice evening. Good night,” and turned my key in the lock. Before I could turn on the light or shut the door, he shoved me hard from behind and knocked me to the floor. I was astonished; then I was confused. Then I was scared. I had always thought that if anyone
tried to rape me, I could kick him in the nuts, or run, or scream, or do any number of things to protect myself. But I learned in short order that he was a lot stronger than I was and there was no way on this earth I could defend myself.