She Ain't Heavy, She's My Mother (7 page)

I was never again to be the same boy I had been when I entered the theatre. The musical numbers were different
from any musical movie I’d ever seen, spectacularly raw, frightening, comic, and definitely sexual. I felt a tingle downstairs, the beginning of an erection. Unlike my experience at church, I was never bored watching
Cabaret
. Even though I couldn’t understand all of the words, I somehow sensed the emotional life behind them and it carried me through to the next musical sequence. The only sign of trouble came toward the end, when Michael York screams, “Oh, fuck Maximilian.”

Then Liza quips back, “I do.”

Then Michael York smiles and adds, “So do I.”

Audible gasps from Mom, and even louder from Moozie. “That wasn’t in the play, in fact there was no Maximilian.” Mom looked down at me and said, “Honey, we don’t use that word. That’s a very naughty word.”

She had worked tirelessly at trying to rid me of my foul mouth. Even my father had toned down his vulgar expletives. Now Bob Fosse had put them back in her little angel’s head. But I assured her, “Like you told me, Mom, I shouldn’t use words that I don’t understand.”

“That’s my sweet little man.”

Soon the film was done. While the audience applauded, Moozie huffed and briskly exited our aisle, saying, “I don’t see why they can’t make more happy movies like they did in my day, not with all that cussing, there’s no need for that, it’s just common, I’m going to the ladies’ room, I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

Under her breath, Donna whispered to Mother that in Moozie’s day, movies didn’t have sound yet.

• • •

O
N MONDAY
I came tearing into Dr. Sugar’s session room and, without a word, raced to the big roll of drawing paper, ripped off an unusually long piece, spread it on the floor, then lay on top of it, pleading, “Trace me, please, Dr. Sugar, trace me!”

He agreed and traced me, pausing a few times to ask me what this was about and telling me to keep still or the silhouette would not resemble my form at all. Finally, when he’d finished, I jumped up, grabbed the crayons, and proceeded to color on my body’s own outline. We talked about why I loved
Cabaret
so much, and how I couldn’t understand why my father had no desire to see it; in fact he said he thought the Broadway show was stupid. And I said how I thought football was stupid.

As we discussed my feelings, a seed of understanding was planted that would help me later on. Basically, he helped me to see that my father and I were complete opposites; it didn’t mean that he loved me any less. We were just different. Dad and Jay were football and sports; Mom and I were theatre and fashion, and that was all right. All men didn’t have to like sports. In fact, Dr. Sugar said that he really didn’t care for football whatsoever.

At the end of our session my masterpiece was complete. Upon my traced form I had drawn a purple halter top, hot pants, garter belts, fishnet stockings, a derby hat, and big spidery eyelashes just like Liza.

“B
RYANNY
B
OY,
you are just not concentrating, it’s flap-step, step, shuffle-step, ball change, then hop-hop-hop. Got it? O-kay, from the top … Gayle, play the record … five, six, seven, eight …”

Moozie and her sister Norma were seated in the armed Danish Modern dining chairs upholstered in turquoise bouclé, both wearing cat-eyed glasses, with their legs crossed at the ankles, and both fiercely watching my every move. They were, after all, the famous Nuss sisters, founders of the Nuss School of Dance. At the tender ages of twelve and fourteen, they had been put to work teaching dance by their mother, Grandma Katie, who I’m told made “Mama Rose” look like a wallflower. Their first revue at the French Opera House was a smashing success, and to this day I am stopped on the streets of New Orleans by elderly women who recall that Miss Nuss taught them how to dance as well as to be ladies. Norma retired after marriage, but helped Moozie when she was needed.

The word
partiality
was and still is used often in my extended family. Katie was partial to Norma, Moozie was partial to Gayle, but what could have torn the sisters apart made them closer despite the shortcomings of their parents. Norma was everything to Katie, but Moozie was the daughter who cared for her until her dying day. When confronted by this rampant favoritism, Moozie just shrugged, eyes raised to the sky, saying, “You can’t help who you love.”

Although the famous Nuss sisters were the closest of siblings, they were very different. Moozie, whose nickname often varied, but always contained the syllable “moo,” was large and loathed anything to do with cooking. Norma was thin and a gourmet. Hazel had let her hair turn silver, and dressed conservatively. Norma was a bottle blonde who was the first to bob her hair and become a flapper in the 1920s, and now the first to wear a ladies’ pantsuit. But both felt unswerving love and devotion to their family. Aunt Norma called me “heart.” She taught Sunday school and always made sure to include Jay and me when her class made holiday presents so that my parents would always receive something handmade from us.

The Nuss sisters were here to assess and perfect Mom’s choreography for my third-grade spectacle. The music started, and the strains of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” reverberated through the room as I started tapping across the gray terrazzo floor, slipping every so often because of the high polish and wax buildup. That didn’t stop me. I was Rudolph, the soon-to-be star of the third-grade Christmas play,
The Night Before Christmas
.

Now, you may be saying to yourself, there is no Rudolph in
The Night Before Christmas
. Well, let me tell you there was going to be one in the Henson Auditorium on December 18, 1971, for two performances only! My teachers had noticed my spark of theatricality and created this part just for me. Now that I had Moozie and Norma to guide me professionally, and the promise of a lit-up red nose, this performance was going to slay all of Isidore Newman School. Newman is one of the most respected private college preparatory learning institutions in New Orleans and the entire Mississippi Delta region. It’s alumni is a who’s-who of New Orleans, and since my father attended until he was sent to Culver Military Academy, he insisted that Jay and I would be Newman Greenies.

The third-grade Christmas play (yes, it was still called a Christmas play) was one of the big three events of the year, along with the fifth-grade play and the high school musical. Three years before, Jay had made a respectable Frosty. Now I, the singing and tap-dancing Rudolph, was poised and ready to go down in grade-school theatrical history. But how? The dance was good, but secretly I wanted
great
. My Rudolph needed to be as good as the Ernie Flatt dancers on
The Carol Burnett Show
. As I was tapping, flapping, and ball-changing my heart out, Mom stopped the routine.

“This number needs something with more pizzazz, something show-stoppy, something acrobatic. Baby, can you do a cartwheel?”

“Of course I can, Mom.”

Challenged, I started to prepare to do a cartwheel and
all was going fine, the jump, each hand perfectly placed, legs straight and toes pointed, but what neither one of us realized was that because of the metal taps and highly buffed stone flooring, I had no hope of a smooth landing. I slid across the floor and careened into Aunt Norma, causing her to collide into Moozie, sending her hot cup of Sanka flying. At this point it occurred to all of us that this trick was not a viable addition to my performance. Unbeknownst to us, Dad, with scotch number three in tow along with Jay, had been spying on our rehearsal during a commercial break, and my flailing fall sent him into peals of laughter.

“Encore! Mr. Astaire!” he shouted. And Jay said, “Smooth move, Ex-Lax.”

Norma was at first shocked by the display and by the sight of her sister dripping in Sanka, but instantly she joined the chorus of laughter. Soon Moozie, too, joined in.

The only person not laughing was Mom. Holding back her own giggles, she noticed the tears forming in her little deer’s eyes. She tried to explain that no one was laughing at me, but with me, and that my wonderful pratfall was just as good as Dick Van Dyke and those comedians I loved to watch on TV.

“Baby dear, you are very talented and are a natural comic, that’s why everyone is laughing.” Then, to Jay and Dad, “Okay, you two, cut it out, I bet neither of you two galoots can do that or have any better suggestions.” Jay snorted, “I don’t know, Mom, but the best part was the upside-down landing. Dad, the game!”

With that they bolted to the den, shut the door, and were glued to the tube for the duration.

Norma and Moozie joined Mom in reassuring me as we got back to the task at hand. They agreed that future rehearsals were closed to anyone but us, the artists. The music started, the flapping and ball-changing followed, and when I arrived at the dance break, the very place where the ill-fated cartwheel was to be, I stopped and, without knowing what else to do, stood on my head. In an overwhelming response, my artistic directors exclaimed, “That’s it!” “Now we’re cooking!” “Hot diggedy!”

Mom flew to my side and, like a swan, enfolded me in her wings. “See my little red-nosed reindeer, see what you can do? Now let’s perfect it.”

For the next hour, my terpsichorean muses created extensive leg choreography while I was performing the headstand. Legs together, right leg extends, left leg extends, both together, and then clap the feet to the beat. This new addition was a surefire show stopper, and every night for the next two weeks after my homework was done, we drilled the routine, sometimes with Moozie and Aunt Norma, but primarily it was just Mom and me, fine-tuning the dance.

The school year for a mother must be quite taxing, playing chauffer, disciplinarian, chief cook and bottle washer, and spiritual guide, but now mine was also obsessed with figuring out how the light-up nose would (a) work and (b) remain on my face. Mom’s brother, Uncle Dick, was talented with a hammer. He could hang paintings and artwork to
perfection, and anything electrical as well as small carpentry tasks were his specialty, but my light-up nose baffled him. So never able to accept defeat until every possible avenue was explored, Gayle contacted the head electrician at Pontchartrain Beach. “The Beach” was my father’s family business, and, obviously, there were a few perks. If Mr. Gephardt could make the multicolored lights chase in myriad formations all over every thrill ride of the park, even with missing fingers, he could create an illuminated red nose for a third-grader.

Some of his early attempts with an extension cord were beyond disastrous, but finally, just a few days before the performance, he rigged a battery pack that worked. My mother thought that if someone could create an entire light-up costume for the stripper character of Electra in
Gypsy
, a Rudolph nose should be a cinch. And he did it! Inside the very shiny red clown nose was nestled a small Christmas tree light. The wires were fitted around the front of my face, attached to tight-fitting, crescent-shaped behind-the-ear metal eyeglass frames. The dark wires were then disguised and woven through my antler headdress, designed by Miss Inez, then to a battery pack for which the on-off switch was in my pocket.

Another pressing issue was how the antlers could be constructed so as not to be crushed or broken during the big trick. Trial and error proved the best system for determining what fabrics and supports to use. The final result was black felt-covered wire similar to the type used for a Slinky, so that the antlers could bend but return to their original shape. Every last detail was taken into consideration;
even the wires that went across my face were painted by Norma to match my skin tone. There was a motto in our family: If you are going to do something, do it right! The underlying and unspoken message was “pull out all the stops and take no prisoners.”

The day before the dress rehearsal at school, the
grandes dames
of dance convened in our extravagantly decorated Christmas home. This year Gayle went overboard, with all my support, as we both loved decorating for every holiday. We often joked that guests must always be in constant motion, because if someone sat too long, Mom would affix a red velvet bow to them. The chairs were in place, the record on the hi-fi, poised for playing. As was the drill, the ladies sat, legs crossed at the ankles, all smiles, their colorful rhinestone Christmas brooches gleaming as the tree lights across the room glistened in the facets. Norma’s was a modern golden angle with a starburst diamond halo. Moozie’s was an elegant emerald-and-ruby tree. And Mom’s, which was a gift from Norma, was a bust of Rudolph with a big ruby for the nose. I hid in the study, assembling my brown polyester and corduroy ensemble, and trying desperately to get the nose and antlers on right. Finally I had to call Mom in for assistance, and as she adjusted the venison-inspired regalia, I noticed the brooch.

“Mom that is so beautiful.”

“Your sweet Aunt Norma gave it to me, I Sewanee she is so thoughtful. Okay, mister love bug, now don’t forget to use your clicker to turn the light in your nose on and off, and remember you are special. Just like Rudolph can light up the sky, you can light up the stage.”