Читать книгу Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art - Gene Wilder - Страница 12
ОглавлениеI suppose that everyone has had to wrestle with a demon at some time in their life. My Demon came out of hiding on the first day of spring, during my freshman year. It came out without warning, like a sudden eclipse of the sun – not in the disguise of alcohol abuse or drugs or gambling or sexual perversion – nothing like that. My Demon came out in the form of a horrible compulsion to pray. I say “horrible” because I didn’t want to pray – I had to pray, wherever I was, even though I didn’t know what I was supposed to be praying for.
When the compulsion came upon me, I would pray in front of whichever building I was about to enter for my next class. I would speak to God, out loud, but I tried to move my lips as little as possible when people passed by because I was afraid they’d think I was another one of those poor souls who hadn’t bathed or changed clothes for a week, who usually smelled of urine as they mumbled up and down busy streets, talking to God, or the Devil, oblivious of everyone around them. I was excruciatingly aware of everyone around me, but I thought that if I were truly humble, then the presence of all these passersby shouldn’t bother me. I kept on mumbling softly, trying to find out – as I prayed – what terrible thing I could possibly have done for which I needed God’s forgiveness.
The craziness reached a point where, one morning, I plastered down my curly hair with Vaseline, just to prove how truly humble I was. When I looked in the mirror, I saw a freak. I was so embarrassed I didn’t know how I could leave the house and go to class … but I did. I walked into my theater history class and sat next to my lunch pal, Betty Kanzell. She used to make fun of me if I missed breakfast and she heard my stomach gurgling, but on this morning she just kept staring at me.
BETTY: What the hell did you do to your hair?
ME: I’m just trying something. I’ll tell you later.
BETTY: It looks horrible! Why did you do that?
ME: I told you – I’m just trying something. I’ll tell you later.
And then one day – just like that, as if a motor or an electric switch had been turned off – the compulsion stopped. The Demon was gone. I felt as if I had just finished running in a long race, exhausted but exhilarated, and could now be a normal person again.
But three or four days later the Demon returned. The pattern repeated itself so often that I felt as Dr. Jekyll must have felt when he could no longer control the comings and goings of Mr. Hyde. I never knew how long each episode would last. Three days? A week? Two weeks? I never knew what set off the compulsion. The only small clue I had was wondering, every once in awhile, why I should have the right to possess money – if I should ever acquire any – when there were people all over the world who were dying of starvation.
Being on stage was the thing that saved me from myself. When I was in a play, I was safe. I did four plays in a row that first year, and then, for the fifth production, I was cast as Willy Loman’s son, Biff, in Death of a Salesman … the play that had changed my life when I was sixteen years old.
On opening night the auditorium was packed. We had rehearsed for four weeks, and now I was lying in my “upstairs bedroom” – onstage – waiting for the cue for my first entrance. I didn’t want to pray. “Not tonight, dear God, please!” Maybe the Demon forced his way in because it was this particular play. As I waited for my cue, I kept thinking that I could shut him out in plenty of time … but I couldn’t; the fear of not praying overpowered me, even though it was a matter of seconds before my entrance. I saw both the play and my brain falling apart. Then, somehow, the obligation to the audience and Arthur Miller and my memory of Lee J. Cobb and Mildred Dunnock became more important to me than God. I heard my cue, said my first line … and I was safe for the remainder of the play. Years after that, I still carried the inexplicable conviction that once I stepped onto the stage, they couldn’t get me (whoever the hell “they” were) and that I was safe … so long as the curtain was up.
I drove home for the Easter break. My mother was so happy to see me that I thought she’d burst. She was thrilled that I was going to be home for ten whole days. She laughed so much at my silly jokes that she peed in her pants again. “Now look what you’ve made me do, Jerry.”
After dinner I found her in the living room, sitting on the couch and weeping quietly. I sat beside her. “What, Mama? What’s the matter?” She said, “In nine more days you’ll be gone.”
A little later, at about seven o’clock, I said I was going to take a short walk around the neighborhood. It was still light outside, and I wanted to get some fresh air. After walking several blocks – with the Demon pounding at my consciousness, trying to get in – I found myself at an open field on the outskirts of town – a field I used to play in only a few years before. The Demon knew where he was leading me. I knelt down on the hard earth and started praying.
We were never a particularly religious family when I was growing up, in the sense of prayers at home or rituals, other than going to my grandparents for a meal on Passover and going to the synagogue on the high holidays. Our religion was hugging and kissing each other – a boy being unashamed to kiss his father on the lips and parents who showed affection in front of anyone. Our only doctrine had been “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” So why did the Demon invade my psyche when I was eighteen years old? My only hope, as I prayed in that field, was to get rid of him once and for all. I covered all topics – everything and everyone whom I could possibly have wronged, including God, of course – and I asked for forgiveness. But in another part of my brain, I was screaming, “FORGIVENESS FOR WHAT?” I had no idea, but the strength of that absurdity couldn’t pierce the armor of my compulsion. When I finished praying, I got up and walked home.
My mother, my father, and my pregnant sister, Corinne, were all waiting in the living room, in their dressing gowns. From the expression on their faces, I thought that someone had died. My mother started crying. My father spoke first:
“We called the police – they just left here. Do you know what time it is? It’s three o’clock in the morning! Where were you? What in God’s name were you doing?”
I couldn’t bring myself to say, “I was praying, Daddy – I was lying in a field, praying to God to forgive me.” And if he had said, “Forgive you for WHAT?” I would have said, “I don’t know!” and he would have say, “For eight hours? Are you nuts?” … and he would have been right. So I mumbled something about having fallen asleep in a field because I was so tired. Then I apologized to all of them and went to my bedroom.
