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1 THE BEGINNING
In 1962 the United States of America and, indeed, the whole world, faced an existential threat to our very existence! Yes, yes, I know, that’s redundancy in the extreme, but this threat, this danger not only to our lives but to our very way of life, was so imminent, so gut-wrenching, so horrifying, so unthinkable, that surely I can be excused a little alarmist redundancy, not to mention the exclamation mark. Those of you who were alive at the time, or those of you who know your history, or those of you with even just a vague memory of a hint of a rumor, will immediately think I am writing about the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of that year when President John F. Kennedy, through disciplined and calm wisdom, saved our bacon bits—or tempeh tidbits, depending on your dietary requirements. Not that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev didn’t find a spark of humanity within his bald Communist cranium and contribute to our bullet dodging, but Kennedy was the hero in our books. You may well be thinking that this boiling pot of Cold War stew is what I’m writing about. But you would be wrong. I’m writing about something you and historians and even podcast pundits have never heard about, something that was far more existentially existential to our continued existence than a mundane nuclear holocaust. And you have never heard about it because those who survived the calamity-that-almost- was entered into a conspiracy of silence. No—let me rewrite that, ‘conspiracy’ is too jaundiced a word. They entered into a pact of silence for fear of causing mass hysteria, and worldwide panic, and general consternation, and rampant indigestion. But now is the time to finally reveal the truth so long hidden from you. And now is the time to speak of the hero and heroine (if I may not be too politically incorrect in using the feminine) who in the summer of ‘62 not only saved our bacon—but the whole damn pork enchilada. And only I can do that because only I know the whole story. And as it is a story of black and white, put on your black and white specs and take a good look as we... ...enter deep into a dark swamp thick with bald cypress trees standing on their cypress knees as murky and mucky water flows around and all the cormorants and whooping cranes and anhingas have run, flown, or darted away; all the ducks have ducked underwater, and even the bald eagles and various hawks have lit out for safer territory as monumental hand-to-hand combat between a good- looking, well-muscled, male human hero in khaki clothes and an ugly, giant, two-legged lizardman of some exceptional martial skill, disturbs the usual peace of the swamp. A high-pitched scream is heard as a gorgeous blonde with perfect makeup and a blouse missing some buttons, fears for the life of the male human she may or may not have had carnal relations with and, not incidentally, her own life as well while clinging to the knee of a bald cypress tree. Finally, the male human hero gets the upper hand and manages to push the lizardman into a shallow part of the swamp with strange gases hovering close to the water’s surface. From his belt, the hero grabs a flare gun and does not hesitate to send a flare straight into the water, right between the lizardman’s legs. Hellfire explodes all around the lizardman. It is a fire that one knows is red and yellow with white- hot heat, but here it is only illuminated shades of gray. The lizardman, confused by the searing heat and pain lets out an unearthly howl as he slowly cooks to death. The good-looking, well-muscled, male human hero in khaki grabs the gorgeous blonde with perfect makeup and a blouse missing some buttons, and holds her tight as three-dimensionally looking letters in two dimensions fly up from nowhere and smack against the screen spelling out ATTACK OF THE LIZARDMAN and THE END and MADE IN HOLLYWOOD U.S.A. The broadcast of this early 1950s horror flick being over, the small studio at Chicago’s WAGO-TV station bustled and burst with color (colorful set, colorful language from frustrated technicians) as they switched to live to finish this episode of Vivacia’s House of Horrors. The beautiful Vivacia herself—pale of face framed by long raven’s wing (what else?) black hair and wearing a slinky and slick ebony satin dress with a plunging neckline (or décolletage if we want to bring a little lift to the thought)—lounged sensually on her huge, round bed with blood-red silk sheets (the producer had gotten the idea from Chicago native Hugh Hefner). She looked directly into camera number one and held up what looked exactly like a barbecued lizard on a stick and said in her deep, silky voice, “Oooooooo—lizard flambe!” With a ravenous, anticipatory smile, Vivacia parted her lips, brought the lizard flambe to her mouth, and took a generous bite full of sexual subtext. She chewed, savored, swallowed, then said, “I love it!” A snort and a whimper came from her side as a little hunchback man with a twisted face bounced on the bed next to her. “Would you like a little bite, Grossie?” Grossie, snorting and panting, made it clear that he would, and so Vivacia let him slobber onto the reptilian delicacy, licking it like a popsicle, as she said, “Well, it’s time for me to close up the House of Horrors for the summer, turn out the lights, and scream to my heart’s content. But do tune in tomorrow for our first ever rerun of that masterpiece of waterfowl fright, Devil Ducks from Downunder. It’s Australian, mate!” The red light on the camera dimmed, and the director—somewhat dim himself—shouted, “All right everybody, another classic in the can.” Vivacia relaxed as Grossie collapsed into her décolletage while snorting out his signature snort. “Arthur! Please!” Vivacia said as she pushed Grossie out of her cleavage and flat (sort of) onto his costume's cotton-filled humpback. Vivacia shimmied herself off the round bed just as her agent, who was ironically named Al Hart, came up and handed her a cup of coffee, which she took with gratitude and downed with alacrity. “Baby, sweetie, that was great! I still have chills running up and down my spine.” Vivacia looked at her agent, a genial man who was never seen wearing anything but a three-piece gray suit draped over his skinny frame, and, one inferred, lifts in his shoes, as well as a gray fedora to keep Chicago’s wind from sweeping across his bald pate. “How is that possible, Al?” Vivacia asked in her deep, silky voice. “I didn’t know you had a spine.” “Are you kidding, kiddo? It’s steel, I tell ya, steel.” Vivacia handed her now empty coffee cup back to Al and left the studio floor to walk down a corridor to her dressing room. “Yeah, yeah, sure.” Al, who actually did not have an office in metropolitan Chicago, but rather in a nearby suburb in a room over the garage of his “ancestral home,” quickly put down the cup and reached into his inside coat pocket and withdrew with pride a folded document and hurried to follow the mistress of the night. “Well, maybe this will prove it to ya, baby. I got your new contract right here. And I got you a great deal. Three years, no ifs, ands, or buts. A 2.3% raise over those three years. And your dressing room repainted.” Vivacia continued down the corridor, shouting back, “Al, I told you, no way!” And when she spotted the nineteen-year-old “associated producer” of Vivacia’s House of Horrors down the corridor just about to dash into editorial, she shouted forward, “GEORGE!” At the deep-voiced, silky, yet pointed command of the vampire woman, George stopped midway through the editorial door. Vivacia came up to him and held the “lizard-on-a-stick” with the generous bite out of it right in front of his fuzzy face. “What the hell did you fashion this ‘lizard’ out of?” “Ah...” George’s eyes darted right, then darted left, then up, possibly in supplication to a supernatural being for protection, then down in avoidance as his mouth formed a feeble smile and he barely articulated, “Lizard.” “Youuuu bastard,” Vivacia said with a chill in her voice and revenge on her mind. “Gotta go!” George dashed into editorial and quickly closed the door. Vivacia began down the corridor again. “If my mind weren’t already made up, that would have done it!” Al quickly followed. “Listen, please, this is a great deal! It’s the highpoint of my career!” Vivacia stopped, turned, burned a look into Al’s pinpoint eyes, and said, “Al, getting a second client would be the highpoint of your career.” Vivacia and Al came to the dressing room of one KATHY ANDERSON (as it said on the door) and entered. Vivacia immediately went behind an ornate but faded dressing screen that once resided in Chicago’s once-great Studebaker Theater, and Al plopped himself onto a worn and patched couch of no known style. “Kathy, please, please, don’t do this to yourself. You turn down a deal like this and the word goes out—and I hate to put it in these terms, but it’s a cruel business—the B.I.T.C.H. is dif-i-cult. You’ll never work in this town again.” Vivacia’s deep and silky voice countered from behind the screen, “Oh, don’t give me that, Al. This isn’t network prime time TV. This is a cheap local station, late-night, creature feature show, for Christ’s sake. And I’m sick and tired of being a sex goddess for geeks!” she exclaimed as she tossed her black dress over the top of the screen. It landed on Al’s lap. “And who cares about Chicago anyway? There’s a reason why they call it ‘The Second City.’ I’m a well-trained actor, Al. I studied at the Actor’s Studio. In New York, Al! You know, the First City! I should be plying my craft on Broadway. I should be doing plays by Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, even this new guy, Albee.” “Broadway’s dying, baby!” Vivacia’s deep and silky voice, laced with venom, came as a curse from behind the dressing screen. “Al, don’t ever say that again! Broadway will never die!” Al was unrelenting. “TV’s killing it, kiddo!” “Oh, Al, please...” Vivacia had vanished. Somebody else was suddenly pleading, in a voice neither deep nor silky. Out from behind the screen came Kathy Anderson. In truth more scamp than vamp, an all-American blonde girl of leading cheers and making homes and occupying the day and night dreams of countless young American males who didn’t deserve her. Except, of course, Kathy wanted more. “You have to understand,” she finished, standing in a warm light wearing a simple nice skirt and a white blouse and holding Vivacia’s black wig at her side like a large dead rat, “I am going crazy playing Vivacia. I was meant to be Ophelia. Joan of Arc. Hedda Gabler. Not a vampire woman who eats lizards on a stick!” Kathy gestured broadly with the wig in hand, like a nightmare pom-pom from hell. “But—” “It’s all settled. First thing tomorrow I’m taking off. I’m going to stop and see my parents for a couple of weeks so you can send my last check there. Then it’s New York! The stage or die!” Kathy grabbed a framed photo of her parents from her dressing table and her oversize purse, stuffing the wig into it. “Ah...,” Al said. “Hey! I paid for this wig. Remember? It wasn’t part of the last deal you got me!” “No, I just thought you would want the dress too,” Al Hart said offering up the dress from his lap. “Oh, yeah! I paid for that too!” Kathy snatched the dress from Al’s hand then marched to the door, turned back to face Al with a bright smile, and a cheerful “Bye!” accented by a little wave of her hand. Then she turned and left, canceling this episode of her life. ============================================================== GET  |
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