From my brother Philip- a long ago memory.

My brother Philip, hanging on to his mother S.F three months before his death- August 1985.

Autograph party. I believe the man on the right is actor John Abbott.

I found this crumpled among Philip’s things…. penned three months before his end.

Recalling a distant day on Eighty Deuce (verbatim):

August 1985

A Perfect Day-

I woke up earlier than mom and Michael one Sunday morning when we were living in apt 3A so I guess I was about 8 years old because we lived for two years in each of three separate apartments at 32 w. 82nd. The very first thought I had was “I wanna walk Barney to the east end of castle lake, where I could sit on the rock with him and have the sun on my back while I coaxed him to go swimming. It was a beautiful summer’ like spring morning so I only wore a short sleeved blue and white patterned shirt, blue jeans and sneakers. Mommy always said once I got something in my head-something I desired-I either achieved or got it (or died as children often do in their imaginations). So anyway I quietly got up and asked Barney if he wanted to go’ bye-bye’. He said “sure” the way only Barney could. So we softly left. We did exactly what I wanted to do. Boy, it was a beautiful day. And mom, to this day doesn’t know that Barney went swimming unless she reads this or you tell her or both. I don’t snitch myself. For me, at that time, this kind of thing was MY own paradise. Just a few blocks from home and I WAS home. And vice versa. When I got back we didn’t see anybody except a few kids I knew from across the street. I began talking to one of them who was a year or so older than. He had a pretty big plastic toy truck. It was about the size of Barney’s head. He asked me if I would trade Barney for the truck. I said no. BARNEY LOOKED INDIGNANT. He was though, glad to be home when we got upstairs ‘cause mom and Michael were awake and he (Barney) was dry and naturally sniffing in the kitchen. I don’t remember the rest of the day but I do remember the night.

Michael and I had pushed our beds together and seeing how we had the television in our room and the next day was school, my brother and I got under our quilt and sheet covers and mom and Barney lay in between and we watched The Late Show movie about a British highwayman with all the lights off. Boy, that was a great day. The TV was like a fireplace telling a story. It was love it was home it was peace. And I’ll never forget it if I lived to be 200 years old. Just the four of us. It was home. The Result? Thirty-two pointless failure laden years.

And on the back he writes: “The tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal; the tragedy lies in having no goal at all.”-------Benjamin Mays

1996 and Portia--

After coming home the second time from California, things began to settle down and sink in. I was encumbered, relieved and excited by this copious family material that I suddenly had in my possession. The letters, the photos, the newspaper clippings, the short stories by my brother Phillip written in his hand. I marveled at the letters. It became all so fascinating to me yet all so painful. One late August evening I was going through some of Philips things and came across a tape of John Gary. Philip would listen to John Gary. In particular ‘Unchained Melody’, sung beautifully by Gary. Philip would listen to it over and over. My mother, Philip and I would sit in our apartment on 82nd in the late 1960’s and listen to it over and over.

I put it on and began to sift through family photos, coming across a photo of the four of us in London. It was from a series of publicity shots celebrating the birth of my brother to “South Pacific’s singing star Wilbur Evans” for London’s ‘The Evening News’ dated September 20, 1952. Phillip two weeks old, me barely two years old and my mother and father beaming. I suddenly began to weep uncontrollably, I mean gut weeping for many minutes.....I was weeping...grieving for my brother which I had barely ever done.......I was weeping ...for my mother, I was weeping for my father, I was weeping for the family in that photo, where in that photo, it seemed, that the nano-second of flashing light was as close as we ever got, I was weeping for the years of pain, chaos and confusion....the loss. The weeping was good. It seemed to me that I was on a divergent path. A snails path. A path of ancestral responsibility? Why me?

On Portia……

During this time, once a month on Thursdays evenings, Marianne Williamson would lecture at the Town Hall up on W. 43st. Marianne has had several bestsellers, “Return To Love”, “The Healing Of America”, Illuminata, lecturing frequently on matters of the heart and spirituality. I had heard her before , enjoyed her ideas.

This evening that I left the Bobst Library , it was a Thursday and Marianne was scheduled. Although I was tired, beat, I headed on up to catch her message.

On this particular night (as with every other night I’d seen her) it was crowded and the line flowed out into the street and down the sidewalk. I was tired and irritated and just not sure I wanted to be there, considering an early evening train ride home. My sense for “stand in line martyrdom” prevailed and I joined the rank.

As my part of the line approached the ticket takers, I began an exchange of shared disgruntled feelings on the molasses like movements of these ticket takers with a couple of women behind me; an attractive gal around my age with the other gal appearing in her seventies.

After getting in and finding my seat, I found that my two disgruntled comrades on the line chose seats next to me. As the murmuring crowd settled in with anticipation for Marianne, the younger gal and I began some chatty small talk,....... she asked where I was from? I told her I lived upstate but was originally from the city...she asked where in the city? I said 82nd and Columbus. ‘that’s where I live!,’ she said. Well, what a ‘coincidence’?.....connection?

Marianne gave her spiel and as we began to file out...the 82^nd St. gal asked me if I had an e-mail address? I said no...that I hadn’t quite reached that cutting edge but I did have an analog phone number, which we exchanged and went our way.

I called “Jaymie” the next day and before I tell you of the resulting fireworks, angelic violins and cosmic howls encircling this call, I must put forth a little history.....

While Susanna was under contract with Paramount and Universal she had a couple of close friends... Barbara George (Barbara was from Minneapolis) and Portia Nelson (then she was Betty Mae, later changed to Portia). My mother met Barbara just after finishing her first film ‘The Great Victor Herbert’ She and her father rented an apartment from Barbara’s mother in Hollywood. Portia she met a little later on while under contract with Universal (Portia composed and sang, working for the publicity department at the studio). All three gals were in their late teens, early twenties and were inseparable. All three played the piano, sang, harmonized together, Portia would compose and Susanna would sing Portia’s stuff. There were “garage” recordings....they were lost.....Barbara, a terrific writer whom my mother says could rank with any of them.... “Capote, Carson McCulloch, Harper Lee.... any of ‘em!”

These were names I would always hear as a child...You know, when you were a little kid your parents would talk about certain friends and family. Like a printer’s iron template on the psyche of a five year old, these names I could never forget…..Barbara, Portia.

In my first stages of my Comeback (1988), three years after my brother’s death and three years after placing the kids in temp care (at this time I had already gained custody of Eric, and Brittney’s custody would follow the next year)....I was visiting with a counsler, I noticed something on the wall:

An Autobiography In Five Short Chapters

I- I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall

in I am lost...I am helpless It isn't my fault. It takes forever to find

a way out.

II- I walk down the same street. There's a deep hole in the sidewalk. I

pretend I don't see it. I fall in again. I can't believe I am in the

same place but it isn't my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.

III- I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I

see it is there. I still fall in...it's a habit. My eyes are open. I

know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.

IV-I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I

walk around it.

V- I walk down another street.

The author at the bottom of the page was.....Portia Nelson.

Portia Nelson!!....I ‘shared’ with my counselor that my mother had a dear friend....Portia Nelson! I figured how many Portia Nelsons could there be....this must be the same woman....!

I asked for a copy and got several. This counselor seemed to love the copier, any chance she had to make a copy and then some...she would.

Over the years in my comeback process, I would come across Autobiography in Five Short Chapters ....self-help books, the counseling milieu etc...

It was the quintessential definition of insanity; “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results...” and the path away from it.

Over the years Autobiography In 5 Chapters would always hang somewhere in my home helping to ever remind me of my own path through insanity.

Back to my phone call with “82st-and-Columbus- Ave- Jaymie”: We shared the obligatory incidentals....I asked her “Who was the older woman with you?... your mom?” she says, “no, that’s my friend.............. Portia Nelson”.

Well let me tell you, this is where the angelic violins and cosmic howls swirled and thrusted me from my seat!

My God! Portia Nelson!..... And Jaymie from Eighty Duece!....centimeters from where I grew up!! .....Eighty Duece?! oh geesh, forget centimeters........this was it........ .....my turf.....my roots......signed, sealed and delivered.

With all that had happened regarding Susanna and our family history that year....the Universe suddenly decides to open this vortex and plop Portia and Jaymie in my lap!

Yikes....Much to say and recall from this time....eighteen months have past, it’s taken me this long to begin to get this Portia/Jaymie vortex thing down, down on the hard drive. These past eighteen months....the wind and waves of the Portia vortex continue, pushing the envelope of synchrondipity a wee further........let me go on....

Well Jaymie and I were abit taken aback by this “coincidence”....well, really....for me, forget taken aback.....I was pridefully catatonic for days.

A much needed pause--Susanna's genealogy....

Althena Garrison-Susanna's paternal grandmother.

First I must ask: What does it all mean? Where did it all begin? Are my kids and I the last ones to be spit out of this genealogical dysphoria? Is there any way that I.... we can take a stand somehow, someway....to stop this generational pain and madness? Is that all there is for the Larson/Foster/Evans tribe?

In the early months of that fateful year of 1996 I began to innocently enough research our family history. Little did I know that as my research carried on, not only would I become fascinated by the generational dynamics of my people and this seeming historical toxic mix of alcoholism, mental illness and prodigious talent and self-sabotage. but bizarre wild coincidence would start to take place...it seemed like I was opening up a vortex or two that was 'stirring up the spirits.' There was that 'one' defining event, where I would suddenly become incredibly passionate and determined. I will try to tell here of that defining moment, the one 'sign' from whence I would never look back....on September 26, 1996. As I have said in my earlier posts....I struggle with my writing ability. This particular component of this vast conundrum, that the Universe has saddled me with, is very difficult for me to construct in the fantastic, emotional and mind-blowing way that it all happened. Ahhhh, life is difficult.

My mother's grandmother was Althena Garrison, family hearsay said that she was a direct descendant of the famous abolitionist 'William Lloyd Garrison'....I set off trying to find this out...or 'prove it' was actually more the mindset.


A little background-

My mother was born Suzanne Delee Flanders Larson on December 6, 1924 in Chicago, Illinois to Lester Lamont Larson and Adelaide Viola Flanders. My grandfather Lester, was a tall, faired haired, soft-spoken man. His father Martin, was a Swedish butcher. Lester's mother was Althena Garrison, my great grandmother, she's the one we follow back, her mother was Mary Peart and her father was JH Garrison also a butcher. JH's father was Aaron Garrison a homeopathic physician from New York who migrated to Mendota, Illinois about 1850.

In my first few genealogical inquiries I corresponded several times with Mendota, Illinois, a small one-stop-light farming community. I knew that my grandfather was from there. I contacted the court clerk's office looking for anything on the Larson/Garrison clan.

They came up with one document that gave me a good start; Althena and Martin's wedding license. Married November 28, 1878, Martin was 28 and Althena 17. Althena's parents J.H. Garrison and Mary Peart Garrison were present, JH signed the document giving his permission. November,28 1878, four years after Custer's Last Stand.

After further census research, I found that Althena had two brothers and a sister; Fred, George and Netiem and that Althena's mother (Susanna's great grand-mother) Mary Peart Garrison died in 1878 in a month or less after her daughter's marriage. And J.H. Garrison, according to the 1880 census, was living with the WinterScheiel family as a boarder. What happened to Althena's two brothers Fred and George and sister Netiem? Census didn't give a clue. Was this where the hint of tragedy and 'insanity' took it's root?

In 2003 I would meet a second cousin who had been looking for me for years. She lived in Oregon; her grandmother and my grandfather....Susanna's father Les...were brother and sister. Ironically my cousin 'Marcia' had been doing research on the same woman Althena, her grandmother's and my grandfather's mother...she in turn had connected with a third cousin who had taken us back to 1400 England and consequently Stephen Hopkins who hopped off the Mayflower in 1620.

July 2009- Recently have been contacted by Marcia.....who had found our blood line reached Georgia O' Keefe, Betty Davis and George Herbert Walker Bush (oh brother!).

Althena Garrison was Lester’s mother. Hers was a name that as a child I would hear. As my mother would say “Oh yes, Althena was related to William Lloyd Garrison, the abolitionist. As a budding teenager and young adult I was sure that this was why I related so well to the anti-racism ethic. Growing up in the Sixties and fervently joining the marches and displays of the time, I was convinced that William Lloyd hovered by my side. Over the years I would read here and there on William Lloyd and occasionally catch his likeness. My God this man looks just like my grandfather; he certainly has his forehead and that receding line of hair!

But here I need to confess; The usual procedure in looking up ones genealogy is starting with yourself and working back but in my naive way of finding 'proof' of our connection in these early years, I started with William Lloyd Garrison himself...at least it makes for a 'funny' story!

In my beginner genealogy searches around this man there have been some thought provoking finds...he was a fascinating, way ahead of his time; born Dec.10, 1805 he was the fourth child of Abijah and Francis Maria (Lloyd) Garrison, who had immigrated to the United States from Nova Scotia early in the nineteenth century. His father a sea captain was “intemperate” in other words; a drunk or more clearly defined, an alcoholic. Deserting the family when William Lloyd was three. Uh oh, alcoholism ran rampant through my family and my father left me in quite the bind when I was young... hhhmmmmm “there’s a connection right there!” the hopeful connectors in my brain would whisper. Anyway, enough of this connection non-sense. How many boys and girls have gone on to become alcoholic with not a dad in sight? In my years in the recovery milieu it seems every other man “in the rooms” has a similar non-dad story. I am not implying that non-dads lead to alcoholism. But for some, this pain is a good reason to anesthetize.

William Lloyd was a loyal anti-slavery advocate and was one of the earliest to demand “the immediate and complete emancipation” of slaves. In 1826 at the age of twenty he became the editor of the Free Press out of Newburyport, Mass. In the spring of 1828 he joined Nathaniel H. White in editing and writing the National Philanthropist a publication out of Boston devoted to “the suppression of intemperance and it’s kindred vices”. From his own experience, having a non-dad from an early age (where I certainly could identify), he knew the invidiousness of this ‘intemperance’, now a disease called alcoholism. This paper was one of many including his most famous The Liberator, he and his partner Isacc Knapp with nary a pot to piss in, printed this paper on borrowed press and type with the first issue dated January 1, 1831 “in a small chamber, friendless and unseen”, bored witness to his reformationist/abolitionist make up. He and his partner Isaac Knapp would toil 12 hour days; writing, printing, and mailing this paper to not much more than three thousand subscribers. The main theme was unrelenting ‘the immediate, unconditional abolition of slavery’. It’s leading article was a manifesto of sorts always ending with “I am in earnest- I will not equivocate- I will not excuse- I will not retreat a single inch- and

I will be heard.” “The Southern planter’s career” he said, “is one of unbridled lust, of filthy amalgamation, of swaggering braggadocio, of haughty domination, of cowardly ruffianism, of boundless dissipation, of matchless insolence, of infinite self-conceit, of unequaled oppression, of more than savage cruelty”. He was one of the earliest to demand the immediate and complete emancipation of slaves. William Lloyd was described as a ‘philosophical non-resistant”, a pacifist. He trusted only in peaceful means to get his point across.

He was jailed several times, beaten and almost hanged. In 1835 an *English abolitionist George Thompson came to the United States on a lecture tour and was met in many places with a murmured loathing .On Oct. 21 of that year the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society held a meeting, at which a horde of several thousand people gathered expecting to tar and feather Thompson. Much to their chagrin Thompson cut out, so, the crowd believing that any abolitionist would suffice zeroed in on William Lloyd, put a rope around his neck and began dragging him through the streets. The mayor of Boston, The Honorable Theodore Lyman intervened and saved Garrison’s life. And in one of many outcries for women’s rights; at the 1840 World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London, he refused to participate when he found that women were excluded. * In 1838 England abolished slavery.

He was fascinated with phrenology, clairvoyance and spiritualism (“new” age?).

Garrison strongly influenced Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 with Congress amending it to the U.S. Constitution on January 1, 1863.

And Garrison kept on crusin’ on the crusade, he fought unceasingly for prohibition, women’s suffrage, justice to the “red man”, and the elimination of prostitution.

From the Dictionary Of American Biographies- “Garrison was an extremist, incurably optimistic, often illogical, and extraordinarily persistent. Seldom has individualism been more vehemently asserted than in his protests against social and moral orthodoxy...” “..He was a perplexing blend of contradictory qualities, of shrewdness and gullibility, of nobility and prejudice, who will be remembered chiefly for his courage in upholding a righteous cause when it was unpopular.”

“My country is the world- My countrymen are mankind”,

William Lloyd Garrison

Now here’s one guy I became mesmerized with. I felt a connection, weather it be thru the catacombs of genealogy or not.

Also, a relation to William Tecumseh “War is Hell” Sherman was whispered, the Civil War general who burned Atlanta on his march to the sea (my elementary school on the upper west side of Manhattan PS: 87 was named after the General; The William T. Sherman School (in fifth grade I was convinced that I owned this building) and Elbridge Gary, the antitheses of John Hancock, the man with the smallest signature on the Declaration of Independence.

In my genealogical reads and exchanges, I’m finding that many a family have these shadowy links or “as told by....” ancestral heresays. It seems some are whispered to simply lift a families’ already low generational self-esteem. As I suspect, this could be the case with my family. It seemed that a healthy self-esteem was a rare generational bird in my flock. Nonetheless my mother has been a veritable living warehouse of familial data. At least a strong starting point to help me sift thru the “as told bys” and shadowy links.

Lester Lamont Larson (my grandfather lest you forget) and his family were from Mendotta, Illnois. A small farm town (Population: 4, 346) in Lasalle County in the central part of the state. During the summer and fall of this conspicuous year (1996) I’ve had many exchanges for information with Mendotta. One of my first requests was for a possible copy of Lester’s mother and father’s marriage license...... And to my utter amazement I got it!

My grandfather-about 1890. Mendotta, Ill 'cabinet portrait.'

My great grandparents>>> “Greeting- Marriage may be celebrated between Martin Larson and Althena Garrison- November 28, 1878.......”. My God! this was the time of the wild, wild west, Custer’s Last Stand was only three years past! Martin was a butcher from Sweden. His parents were Elsa and Lars. But interestingly I also discovered the names of Althena’a parents; JH Garrison from New York (a butcher) and Mary Pert from England (housekeeper). JH’s new son-in-law Martin was a butcher as well.-----I’m sure JH was pleased.

JH was my focus, could I find a connection between him and William Lloyd?

J.H. Garrison

It was the beginning of September, my trips to NYC became more frequent. The past spring I connected with a new therapist, so I had a great excuse to get down there at least once a week, see her, do some ancestry research, hit some 12 step meetings, and more or less bounce around my town.

I loved getting over to the New York Public Library, the Catalog Room, the Main Library Reading Room connected to (way in the back) # 315S Genealogy. A peculiar busy, quiet place, books shelved all around to the ceiling, an information counter and desks in the middle with two or three disheveled information directors, pointing people to antecedent paths of family discovery.

I’d sit and stand many a day in this room...row upon row of black and gray books, like old oversized Britannica volumes. (The Catalog Room).

There was one book that I visited often....I think it was Ns-241..no....maybe it was gh-908...or hr-d678..who knows but it seems every time I went back I’d forget it’s index number (or lose the scrap of paper I’d written it on) and have to stand in line to re-discover it’s camouflaged spot on the shelf. It had just about every book listing (at least that’s what they told me) by or about a ‘Garrison’ in the last two hundred years.

I finally found a book or should I say a set of three books published about 1903 written by two of Wiliam Lloyd’s kids, Wendall and Elizabeth. This book was un-borrowable so I had to kind of try and read or should I say skim though as best I could. No where could I find a hint of a link to this increasingly mysterious JH . Judging by the dates and life-expectancy, my great-great grandfather JH Garrison, if he is connected to Wlliam Lloyd, would have to be his child or an off-spring of a brother or sister (nephew). On the marriage certificate that I received from Mendotta, dated November 28,1878 announcing my great-grand parents union. It told me that Althena was seventeen years old. So, I figure JH was about forty years old this day that he gave away his daughter (give or take five years?). Ancestral twists and turns. It was fun figuring these things out with-- Ancestral Age Arithmetic (AAA), I guess you could say.

Nonetheless my research up until this time at the library had gone for naught until one Sunday afternoon, sitting at home, I fired up my new computer and decided to move against every instinctual grain in my body, and enter for the first time, this mysterious, enigmatic cyber-world they called the World Wide Web. Just the mention of “World Wide Web” would make my skin crawl with a need for the nearest oxygen mask. I had great fear of this computer stuff but knew that the vast information and access thereof unparalleled. So...with an urgent ambivalence........ (to say the least)......I sunk in.

I found myself at the New York Public Library’s Web Site doin’ a search on William Lloyd Garrison.

Appearing was a listing of 58 “items”, with the first 12 on my screen; 1) Life and Character of William Lloyd Garrison (1896), A discourse on William Lloyd Garrison and the anti-slavery movement (1879), Evangels of Reform, by Mortimer Brewster Smith (1934), Behold Me Once More: the confessions of James Holley Garrison..... (1954) I locked right there. James Holley Garrison!? 1954?....J. H. Garrison!? My God....is this the connection that I’d been looking for? Who is this James Holley fellow and what connection does he have to William Lloyd? Or to my J H Garrison!? My God!.... do I have this connection!? Man, was I excited!

With info in hand I made a bee-line the following Thursday straight to the NYPL, into the Catalogue Room to pick up the necessary little ticket that I would take to the, I guess you’d call it “the Retrieval Window” in the Main Library Reading Room. A large oaken counter with a waist to ceiling window as long as it was high, and a kinda bingo looking lighted number board overhead to tell you when your book or books had been retrieved by worker book worms and their dumb waiter elevators from the bowels of the NYPL. These books are not “borrowable”, they are for reading and perusal only in the Main Library Reading Room. The security guards and their “bag checks” remind us of this. Seeing as though this is how I unearthed the 1903 book by Garrison’s kids, I had some familiarity with the operation.

Filled with anticipation I submitted my ticket and waited..... and waited. The bingo board’s numbers glowed and faded with each retrieved order, but my number was not coming up. Waiting about an hour I was told they couldn’t find it.....What! They couldn’t find it? Not only did “they” tell me they couldn’t find it, but they told me they couldn’t find it with a dumb look and... You know.... sometimes dumb looks really piss me off .

I got hold of a supervisor, he presents me with a more, lets say, advanced dumb look and tells me they could possibly try a search of other branches...... “so maybe you could check back next week”?

Next week?.....My God! (again)....verification of my historical self-worth would be delayed.... but, yes, I was sure....... verification was at hand.

Well next week came........ and I found myself panting and twitching (again) at the “Retrieval Window”...........They found it! A copy was located at the NYU library down at Washington Square....The Bobst Library. They gave me a numbered pass that I would need to get into this Bobst Library. I guess the library is only available to a select few, NYU students, faculty, ‘honored guests’? and only available to the general public with the NYPL’s blessing. And the Bobst had it.(for viewing only....the un-borrowable thing again) Or at least something like that.

The following Thursday (Sept.26) after therapy I headed down to the Bobst. The Bobst is twelve stories. Twelve stories of books and glass encased offices surrounding an atrium-like “space” from bottom to top. A large , modern convincing building with an M.C. Escher-like design on it’s ground floor that can be viewed quite impressively from it’s twelfth.

I presented the guards with my numbered pass, got directions to my floor and “aisle” and was reminded that I had about an hour before “we close”. I gotta tell you....I have never done well finding things with combinations of letters and numbers ......libraries love letter- numbers...you know like m-74-h or bt17 or k136-p.... and that’s just what Behold Me Once More was at the Bobst.. ..a letter- number..... letter- numbers were instant angst for me. Especially with the “....we close” ringing in my head.

I missed my Retrieval Window.

I was determined....angst or no angst I was gonna find this book.... and unequivocally verify my ancestral self-worth!!

Here I was on the twelfth floor....back and forth.....section M, aisle 32, book(s) # 114 to 245.....hhhmm....no, no I want section N, aisle 32b....or is that 32a?..ugh!

Lo and behold....I found it, all 138 pages of it. Down the aisle, in the back, a letter- number within a letter- number.....whew! Here it was. I pulled it off the shelf with an electric reverence, sat down at a little desk beside the aisle and began to read and read and read as fast as I could.

Behold Me Once More.....the true confessions of James Holly Garrison.

Edited by Walter McIntosh Merrill - Houghton Mifflin Company-Boston

It turns out that James Holly Garrison was the older brother of William Lloyd and these were his memoirs. Born in 1801, Died in 1841. A story of a man haunted by alcohol from the age of thirteen: “ My first commencing to drink was at Lynn (Massachusetts). I came there to learn the trade of cordwainer (shoemaker) with Mr. Robinson. From him I went with Samuel Mansfield. This was the first shop I saw liquor introduced as a drink. Mr. R being a teetotaler and a member of the Baptist church, never allowed such in his shop. I was now in my thirteenth year and always in my life so far had detested liquor. At this time in Lynn I might almost say, everyone drank what is called black strap, New England rum sweetened with molasses.* I had never tasted liquor, but was persuaded by my fellow apprentices and like wise my master, to drink a little as it would not hurt me. I took a drink, it was sweet, and from that fatal hour I became a drunkard.”

( the editor edited the book as James Holley wrote it, spelling, vernacular and all. Likewise for me here.....)

* drinking hard liquor was a universally popular occupation in early nineteenth-century America.

‘......at eighteen he goes “down to the sea” and for twenty two years was a merchant seaman and sailor of the American and British navies. It’s a dramatic and cruel picture of life afloat in early 19th century. Mathew Calbraith Perry, who later opened Japan, was the first lieutenant on the North Carolina when Garrison served on that ship. We catch Perry’s ugly side as he gives thirteen lashes to an old sailor who “was too ugly to be seen about decks”, or punishes men for having black eyes which he, himself, had given them....’

His battle with alcohol and insanity is chronicled throughout.......... “....We had about forty Irish passengers and 4 barrells of whiskey. This we sold to them by the gallon and between the capt and them our vessel was hell afloat. We were eighteen days with a fair wind running it. Which could have been done in 70 hours. Our capt became crazy with drink, and we was compelled to confine him. One night I had been drinking and was returning aboard when my foot slipped and I fell into the dock, up to my neck in mud. The more I strived to get out the deeper I sank. Catching hold of a projecting timber I hung on to that and calling for assistance as loud as my lungs would allow, but no one came. The tide was riseing fast an nothing but death stare’d me in the face. Again I shouted with all my strength but all was still save the advancing tide, which was to be my winding sheet. I thought of mother and the past scenes of my life flitted before my imagination in all their horrows......”

“....We arrived at N. York and I drank and carried on so bad, that my landlord turned me out of doors saying I owed him 9 dollars. He kept my clothes as security. *Behold Me Once more I stood upright in all I had......”

Alcoholism took it’s insidious toll on James.....spending the last year of his life in Cambridgeport with William Lloyd who for so long tried to rescue James from the pit of intemperance “.....and it’s kindred vices..”.

All that is known of that year is provided by a series of oblique references in Lloyd’s letters. In January he reports that James’s health does not improve and his spirits are sometimes low; he wishes his spirit were “reconciled to God”. In July his health seems no worse, but by September his body is much emaciated, his cough persistent and his lungs, Garrison fears, incurable.

About 3am on the 14th of October, while Lloyd watched alone by his side, James’s intense suffering seemed to pass quietly into sleep. His brother rejoiced that he could have some rest; it was half an hour before he realized what had happened. James “retained his senses to the last”, Garrison said, “and died with all the possible fortitude and resignation, being perfectly aware that his end was approaching”. James was forty one.

This was a sad, sometimes funny story, of a man racked and demonized by alcoholism, a bright man, an eloquent man....I related so well, having watched my brother racked and demonized by this “intemperance”, never mind my own bequeathed insanity.

My great-great grandfather J H Garrison was born about 1838, so according to Ancestral Age Arithmetic....James Holley would have been his elder, like a father or an uncle, so as I turned the pages, I expected the next one to jump at me with... “In 1837....James and his wife Tessy saw the birth of their son James Holly Garrison II....”. Oh God, there would be my verification, I thought,....... any page now ...my confirmation, at last, of my historical self-worth.

This would not be the case. I could find no mention of James ever having a family, except for the occasional romantic letter and references to unidentified women. There is a brief, mysterious mention of a “Lora” but that’s it!

Could my great- great grandfather JH be an illegitimate to James Holley?.....more research and time might tell.....

*Several months later I would find and possess a copy of Behold Me Once More through an out of print book search at my local book store.

I left the Bobst Library that evening tantalized and tired.

Next-- The Synchrondipity of Portia on a New York sidewalk

Best Buds---Barbara George, Susanna and Portia Nelson clowning on the Venice Pier, Venice, California 1943 on a break from the filming of ‘The Phantom.’

Prop Trucks

Prop Trucks offered me a deal I couldn’t refuse.

The business was quickly booming, warehouse filling up. So the talk was for a watchman.
In the middle of the 20,000 sq feet of warehouse was a concrete ‘bunker.’ With a sink, a bed and a little window. And for the sake of my comfort, a newly installed air conditioner and flimsy shower stall. I moved in as the dispatcher/watchman. A far notch above the Los Angeles County Jail hospital suite, I could come and go. I swear though… the same rat would visit.

I was alone with me; it felt good for a time. I bought a little Casio keyboard and began to write tunes.

Writing a song for Sally and Michael called ‘Lifetime.’ It was pure wishful and desperate thinking. The hi-test that denial is made of. I was passionate and hung on every word.

'Look what you have done
It’s a life we own as one
It’s these feelings we have together
They seem they will last forever

We never going to lose it
A precious thing
They can’t take away
Only looking at each other
Taking each day, so sweetly day by day
I want you to look what you are doing
A gift only a few can see
Waste a lifetime only for a fool
A lesson we see endlessly

Let’s not change for anything
To be our selves that’s what makes us one
A lifetime can become so many
A mindful one that’s what makes it fun

Tumbling mountains, falling skies can’t change this
Fairy tales and nursery rhymes all tell
This magic is for all the ones that want it
No more tears it’s all so good and well'

OY VEY....gag me with a spoon!

Treasured solitude gave way to sudden popularity. I had a ‘place’ to get nice with our bartered rewards. A zombie circus, one-ring bunker.

The owners of Prop Trucks were Gary and Rich. Two guys about ten years older than I from Brooklyn. Gary was a carrot-top, a genus Melanerpes, a fellow with a minimal amount of red hair that stretched desperately across a freckled crown. Constantly chewing on a piece of paper (dispatch order) while biting his lip. It seemed his main reason in life was to worry while scanning the dispatcher board for an available driver and the ultimate route. Gary didn’t like too much the idea that drugs were part and parcel to the scene. Keeping his blind eye on his ‘straight arrow.’ Rich on the other hand was laid back and liked a reefer or two. A roly- poly kind of guy with a full mop of salt and pepper and a country western beard. Fancied himself a C and W singer, always begging for an ear to review his latest demo.

As the business quickly grew so did the cocaine use. Rich and Gary (the straight worry arrow who finally succumbed) began to steadily and increasingly partake in its use. One night after work someone brought in a bag of it.

The Prop Truck boys went to town in the newly constructed accountant’s office;
frozen, grinding jaws and gummy, paralyzed swollen throats. A Marlboro fixed to the lip, a Heineken swigged and chugged for screen test and relief. An image of a pathology that was complete. A diorama of the self-embalmed living dead.

A 'special' letter from my father from the time:

13 Nov 84 Michael David Evans c/o Production House Storage (Prop Trucks) 248 West 60th Street
NYC 10019

My Dear Michael-
So glad to hear from you and learn all is well—especially your valuable wife Sally has recovered from her disability. I do hope your lives will settle down—without trouble and chaos. Remember progress in living comes only from wisdom attained by avoiding trouble. Being aware of all possibilities in a situation is the mark of an educated man—the female relies on intuition and feelings.
I am very proud of your own personal fight in the way you came out of the chaos in your youth. Truly you take after me-for I was determined to overcome poverty and achieve something worthwhile. You know who is responsible for my only defeat.
Do keep well-work hard-learn all the rules and regulations of your job—know more than anyone and you will succeed!

My love to you all, Always Dad Masako sends her love too!

Incredibly, I write on the back of this letter, “A special letter, it took me 33 ½ years to get but I got it!”

After Brittney’s first birthday I began to relish my weekend visits to Danbury. The family became more and more important. I loved these kids. I increasingly loved the family. What a concept! I desperately longed for it my whole life. But a few things got in the way.

My self-loathing and a profound, collective denial.

Twin Soliloquies

With Gratitude.....

Gratitude........

Bhagavad Gita and a mistake...

Brittney June's (BJ) # 1 birthday
(two months after our visit with my father).


Seventeen Years Later

After our visit, he sends some ever-easy memorabilia and an index card with the following:

"For Michael David—my beloved son- I send this material because you should have it and realize what a dreadful mistake I made in marrying you’re mother! Thank you for your very polite, proper note—I did appreciate seeing you ALL. I love you all- Dad September 1984

This quote is from the East Indian philosopher Bhagavad-Gita- I think it describes your mother very well—Please keep it. “For the uncontrolled there is no wisdom, nor for the uncontrolled is there the power of concentration, and for those without concentration there is no peace. And for the un-peaceful how can there be happiness.” Dad-- This is your Mother!!"

Both my parents would tell me: "What a dreadful mistake I made in marrying your......"

Hence Philip and I were 'mistakes'.........deep down, that's how I felt for years....it ruled every nook and cranny. Philip had made up his mind long ago.

My Chestnut Jewel.......and self-will run riot.

In 1983 my father sends a cassette-compilation of his music.
The final number on the B-side was his Easter Sunday 1944 NBC Radio-Philco Hall of Fame performance of Malotte’s “The Lord’s Prayer” with The Paul Whiteman Orchestra. Emotion still wells when hearing this piece, beautiful. First time that I heard much of his music in one collection. First time I was truly ‘awakened’ to my father’s talents. Proud of this cassette.

Sally informs me that she’s **pregnant; “WHAT! How could that be, you promised me that…”

All remaining demons were let out of their holding pen. I raged, demanding an abortion…”How could we ‘afford’ another kid?” Immediately began to plot my escape. Matter-of-fact there was no plot. I moved out. Leaving a pregnant Sally and Eric, like a dazed, steroid-dripping racehorse out of the box, I bolted to New York City.

**Brittney June Evans is now twenty five….and miraculously has become my incredible, loving, beautiful singing ‘Chestnut Jewel.’ Marrying her high school sweetheart on Sept 18, 2009. Thank God the Universe had ‘other’ plans.

Philip has now returned to California. I move in with Jimmy (Philip's NYC voodoo enabler), stayed on his couch. Despite his suspected incantations, I stayed on his couch. Oh, he flat out asked me once if I’d like to sleep with him, I declined. Stayed as far away as I could from his bedroom. It stunk from incantation.

Just walking the sidewalks again was a thrill. The love of New York City and its one-of-kind energy never left me. L.A? Phooey.

My demons were in full slam dance and I knew it, sought comfort in any 'benign' way to cover my huge chronic angst.ever enlarging tortured soul..... hoping to keep me even (and legal ?). Then set out to re-book my shadow, my artist’s shadow. Got a job in the mail room of a dying Studio 54. Entertained free cocaine, a lonely lady and some mindless well-heeled disco lights. Hated it.

Village Voice classifieds found me a job as a dispatcher for ‘Prop Trucks’ on 60^th St. and 10^th Avenue. A bicycle messenger/trucking service for the city-film business (Customer self-importance was sickening but even more sickening was my reliable Artist Shadow lap-licker) based in an old 20,000 sq ft taxi garage that doubled as their prop warehouse. Did pretty well, in the thick of it, ranting and raving… running my men to and fro’. Keen with drama and deadline.

Most of these galoots were on a carousel of pharmacopoeia, so it became that familiar match made in junkie heaven. ‘If you get me this job, I got some good…’ Whether it be the nose, lung or mouth it didn’t matter. Bartering Garbage Buckets of the Stupefied.

I would bus it back to Danbury to see my family every weekend. Giving Sally what money I could. I was stingy and confused with the passive/aggressive love/anger that percolated. She reported me MIA to welfare with my blessing so we could benefit with some ‘free money.’ The shameful, chronically malnourished ‘get over’ beast rears its ugly cancer-like head again and again. I became a ‘dead beat dad’ with not even knowing it. Would pay every cent back over 15 years.

I thought I loved Sally, simply wanted our family to ‘work out.’ How could it possibly, we had already gathered a hoard of closeted skeletons that caught and gouged on everything and she was pregnant? How could I accept this new child through all the, confusion, narcissism and whirling tit for tat betrayal? From early on, my life was racking conundrum. Ye old familiar. Good, efficient stimulant for Victim Hood.

My weekend Danbury visits carried on.

On October 21, 1983 Sally called me letting me know that I had a daughter ‘Brittney June Evans’

7lbs 8oz. Numb in more ways than one… was I.

Letter from Susanna to our confused little family-----

January 3, 1984

Dear Sally, Michael and Eric! And Brittney!

How I wish I could have sent Xmas things but it seems I’ve become accident-prone! Plus other events. First of all, before I go into my dilemmas & ailments a word about yours.

I can imagine the pain you are going thru Sally, and believe me I pray for you and your well-being. Our beautiful addition to our families! That Brittney! If I may be so conceited as to say she looks like me in her pictures when I was little (Except she is a brunette)!

That made me tickled even if it isn’t true, because I have a very strong feeling she is going to be herself, just as I always wanted to be (you’ve seen where it’s gotten me!).

But we all have to get there somehow eventually so why not try to be yourself.

My arm was fractured by a maniac at the corner who wanted to use the phone (A big she). And said “Bitch get off the phone,” and twisted my wrist (of course I wouldn’t let go I have something in me) & I heard it snap (forearm). I had been calling the attorney because we had to make a settlement to get out of here (the guy has all the tricks for the Olympics) which we eventually made at the cost of my foot buckling for no reason at the attorney’s office which broke another bone (fell down three steps), then two days later the oven and broiler got on fire and I’m not afraid of fire but the rug caught too, and when I was smothering it I was stepping in it and burned my foot severely and was laid up for a week! Mamma Mia! We are moving too. Finally found a place. –I made a settlement that paid for me being driven around (by Chuck) for $100 etc. I made the owner pay for the moving, the first, last, cleaning and deposit on the dog. I did a pretty good job for an invalid but if you think Sam appreciates it, your dreaming! Al l free money and he’s so cheap. Also $50 for Ricky and Joey to move us—plus Philip and Sam moved for’ free.’ Beer free for all when it’s all over. Please Michael, after all that’s happened, please tell Philip he mustn’t take advantage of me.

As soon as we are settled—we have good sized rooms, large living room, dining room, big kitchen, bathroom, bedroom (SAM!) and linen closet. Balcony for all my plants (I’m growing tomatoes—wild man!!) Chica loves the balcony and decent neighborhood, near everything, $375 a month plus utilities, AND we’re getting a phone put in Friday. Laundry at the foot of the stairs.

NOW!! I’ve thought and thought as to what to get Eric (it will be his birthday and Xmas). I don’t go for these video, electronic toys unless it helps them in math and reading. Please write and tell me what he has. AND Brittney!! Did you know that I was going to write you and suggest the name I was going to name Michael had he been a girl, it was ‘Bronwyn’ from the book ‘How Green Was My Valley’—it’s a Welsh name. I loved the book and the film. And then you named her a name that began with BR! I, (of course) never got off the letter. But she’s so adorable, a doll. A big baby for a little one like you, Sally. I think her name is beautiful and different and Eric! How he’s going to take car of her!

Now has she been gifted with a Cabbage-Patch doll? I know you live in Conn., near Coleco. Please write me. I don’t want to send clothes unless I can afford to do so during the year. I’ve been very ill lately and Dr. Markanian wanted to hospitalize me last Friday because my palpitations were so severe (I was ready to jump off a building) But I’m on a diet and intend to get a bike and work at something. Please write. It’s the end now. Love Susanna

Letter from my father-----

22 Aug 84 save this letter!! Phone number important!!

My Dear Michael David and his love Sally---

I am now 79 yrs and “the days grow short when you reach September.”

This past week I have been updating my will and am sending my instructions to you while I am able!

First: You must come down here to see me and tell you what I want you to have—that is after Masako’s passing! We must be very careful in our talks before Masako—She is a strong-headed lady and arguments will not accomplish anything positive! However I do not want anything of value to me and you to end up in Japan! Where no one knows or cares about it! All my publicity books, pictures and my favorite library books—and cassettes!! I would have like hearing from you on that cassette that I sent you months ago! To busy to listen!!

Second: How to get here;--NJ Turnpike south to Exit 2—off and drive to Mullica Hill about 7 miles—when you come to Route 45 turn right (south) and thru the small village (2to3 miles)—

Do you remember Aunt Ethel Evans—my brother’s wife? Well she was on a cruise to Africa—had a heart attack—finally got back to her (old folks) apartment and died on May 9—she left a small amount of money to Masako and me—not enough to buy a new car!! I want you to have whatever is left. I have planned to have my attorney:

Edgar Hathaway Jr. ESQ.

13 No. Main Street

Elmer, New Jersey 08318 (###) ###-####

To call you—inform you to come down here—he has a key to our house and will let you enter—in case Masako and I go off together! Advise you to rent a truck to take all this furniture etc with you!! Mr. Hathaway will help you in any way you ask. Hope your job is still secure!!

We send our big love to Eric and BJ and you both, Dad.

In my ‘want to believe’ abnormalcy, this letter charged me up. I read it as, “I have money and things for you, come down and we will make it right.” I don’t rent a truck, I rent a car and the four of us head down to Mullica Hill, New Jersey on a Saturday afternoon. Wib’s first and last meeting with his grand kids. Toxic vibes from the ‘step mom’, phony smiles, Wib tripping over words. A short, strange visit, barely remembered. Probably the second or third time I had seen him in fifteen years. Wib did nickname Brittney “BJ.” Trip wasn’t in vain after all.

I would get nothing....and by the Universe's plan, would find and BUY everything on E-bay fifteen years after his death in 1987.

My trip to England and Drury Lane- June 20, 2009

Fifty six years later I return.

A wonderful time in England-land with a Leepule

Julie Wilson appeared in Mary Martin's role the last year.

ME in front of the Drury Lane theatre- 56 years later-June 20, 2009

'Delux'

Formed a band with some fine Danbury musicians. Calling ourselves ‘Delux.’

A couple of old friends from the Cheeba era were members. I poured my heart and soul into ‘Delux.’ But attitudes, egos and alcohol disbanded the band, promptly. I was crushed. I cried, dumbfounded with my consistent string of music failings. Remarkably clueless, never connecting the dots.

Bobby Fink-Peter Bennett-ME-Gordon Rehm-Eddy Lang

Landing in New York; a new begining?

Landing in New York- 1982

Hot, humid and smog-encrusted Port Authority Bus Terminal: My son sets his eyes on New York for the first time and it’s a site for sore ones for me. Was thrilled to be back home, never mind the grunge and greasy no-shower trip; when the cab driver turned and said, “Where the fuck you want to go?”… I remember feeling a big sigh of relief; “I’m home!” Anointed in a cool mountain spring.

Six weeks go by, Sally is overwhelmed and struggling in Hollywood. Raped, held hostage for three days by a black punk rocker pimp next door to Ron and Rock (so she said). Did she ‘ask for it?’ Did it really happen? Sally was left alone and destitute...thats for sure. My son needed his mother…And I wasn't done yet. So we set up a new crazy life in Connecticut.

1/19/83

Dear Dad,

I hope this letter finds you and Mrs. Evans’ in good spirits. I’ve moved back to Connecticut with Sally and Eric. We’re living in Danbury and I’m working for Group Westinghouse cable TV, it might turn out to be a good job (I pray). I install cable television, hard work especially in this freezing weather, which I have to get used to all over again. Things continue to be a struggle, it’s got to be better soon.

I had to get out of Los Angeles, the place is 80% phonies! With five years there I could write a book, between driving a cab, surgical orderly, security officer for American Broadcasting, it was something I’ll never forget. But now I’m back in Small-town, USA. I think it will be better for all of us.

I guess Philip and Susanna are doing OK but they have a lot of things to work out within themselves and it just made it worse with me being near them, I guess we both know something about that!

Please write me and if you can I’d like to know about our family tree especially the Evans’ side which I don’t know much about. I hope one day to pass on to Eric.

All my love, Michael

22 Elm Street #8

Danbury, Conn. My father writes at the top of letter; “Good! Why Danbury in

particular? Jobs? Turnover? Why is it your fault?”

25 Jan 83

Dear Michael—

Well, finally hear from you and I was very happy to know that your out of zany Los Angeles—I hope you wont be foolish enough to ever go back! You seem to have had many jobs—evidently you know something about selling yourself-into a job. I know times are really bad—but have you evaluated your own personal worth?

Now you really understand the fine value of education-in any field. So settle down in a job you like and learn all you can about it! Only this way can you secure your future!

Consider night schools-theatrical schools etc. Your days of drifting and dreaming should be over! YOU have a wife and son so become a responsible man now!

Why did you go to Danbury? IS it the cable headquarters? Are your friends there? Again, I must give you some advice—so take it like a man—the one important thing I’ve learned in life is to develop yourself—develop friends of worthwhile character who are solid, successful in their work and happily settled into life—not g.d’d (God Damned) dope fiends!! Worthless people—better off dead!!

Where do you meet worthwhile people? Well, the first place is to look for a successful and wealthy CHURCH.

I don’t like Catholics—but the priests are usually men with great political and business contacts—only you have to become a Catholic before they help you! One more notch in their gun of conversion—they love to convert! If you can become successful—convert. It means no difference!

Next-usually the Episcopalians are solid and wealthy and educated! Their ministers have good contact with social and big leaders—I call them Republican Catholics! (They don’t convert!)

So get dressed up in your best Sunday clothes and start exploring the best churches in Danbury—for social contacts!! When you have made you choice—get invited churches programs—sing in the choir—join their men’s organizations. Work for their good—Maybe you’ll make some good solid friends. The Y.M.C.A is another place to get involved with good people! Put down social roots and become involved in local church-charity-Red Cross etc! This is an area in which a wife’s social acumen can help a man! S. Foster had none!!

How far in school did your Sally go? Is she socially oriented?

As to your request on the Evans tree—I think I know....

but I’ll tell you when I see you! No written record will exist! We are now less than 150 miles apart—easy to keep in touch!! Write soon and reveal all your progress in life! Love Always Dad

The family tree thing; in my letter I was referring to the hearsay that his grandfather was a Dupont. Was not specific, only mentioned “family tree,” but he knew what I was talking about. At his funeral five and half years later, seven people attended which included the minister and myself. I met his eighty- something year old cousin Greta Petermann. We stayed connected, ended up forwarding me THE Evans family tree dating back to the early 1700 Quakers. Benjamin Hazel from Smyrna, Delaware, was his illegitimate grandfather and purportedly a Dupont. Where’s Barry Scheck when I need him?

1-29-83

Dear dad,

Thanks for the great letter advice. I will always welcome especially from you.

One of the reasons I came back to Connecticut was because I did have friends here but unfortunately a lot of them have seemed to have dried up and withered away, that’s one of the reasons your letter hit home the way it did.

One of the reasons I have had so many jobs is maybe because I’ve held on so hard to my music. Dad, I can stun people when I sing and perform but your right my days of dreaming have subsided and a little more wisdom has settled in. I have always been very proud of you and mom, I think true artists! I think it’s genetically ingrained in me at least I’d like to think so.

You can’t believe how many times I’d meet people that knew you or knew of you—complete praise. When I was a security officer with A.B.C. studios, for the General Hospital soap opera. I met a woman who has a running part on the show. As it turned out, she studied with you in 1947 and went on and on about it.

Charles Nelson Reilly, you might know him he’s the fellow who played the landlord on the Ghost and Mrs. Muir and many other TV shows he said he worked with you and knew of no other performer who could move people the way you did.

Sally does two things very well bar tending and nursing believe it or not! Unfortunately she makes more money bar tending… Rest of letter missing…

9 Feb 83

My dear Son,

I was so happy to receive your letter and your understanding and accepting my fatherly advice. During all of your formative years I have not had any opportunity to offer my thoughts on any of your problems. You know who caused this dreadful separation., but I’m still grateful that we can “talk” to each other!

I too came back to New Jersey to be near my friends in Philadelphia—but alas, all of them have died or disappeared. —So I do not have anyone left in Philadelphia. Except you’re Aunt Ethel Jackson Evans—my brother’s widow who is retired and 75-76 years old. I seldom see her! Too far away—44 miles.

Ma-SA-KO (all even syllables) is the name of my wife. A TRUE ANGEL!

Of course you have music in your blood—that’s good and bad! Good while you can work—bad when you cannot perform—to wit: Your father and your mother!! I had a solid performing record from 1928 to 1967—Man of La Mancha was my last Broadway show—I was wise—I saw the future of my life—trying to find work. I had an old buddy from Philadelphia days who was in the U.S. Army Entertainment Program called the Special Services as a Dept. of the Army Civilian Specialist in Music and Theatre!! And went to Saigon as Chief Executive of USO shows—responsible for all those performers who went to “entertainment” the troops. I handled every famous name except Bob Hope—who had a Lt. Col. and 2 majors responsible for his safety!

When General Abrams—the Boss commander learned of my professional background, was impressed and kept me in Saigon for three and a half years.

Only my brother’s death in 1971 was responsible for my departure. My old buddy was back at Fort Bliss, Texas as chief and he got me a civil service job as Executive chief of Music and Theatre—main job producing and directing musicals. Not bad—What? I had great success in this job—why—because of my past theatrical experience! Ft. Bliss always won the Army Theatre Contests!

What would I have had if I stayed on performing? When I did make good money, your mother’s extravagance ruined me!! It is wonderful your Sally is willing to work and learn nursing.

Masako works as a seamstress and her checks buy our food!! Fortunately I get Social Security and a Civil Service Annuity and that’s all.

Let me know if you’re still in Cable TV—What are your prospects there?? Or Where?

I do hope and pray you will settle down into a solid position—make worthwhile friends.

Our love to you all, Dad

Things for a while remained fairly stable for Sally, Eric and I. Although with me, there was the constant thrum of angst…always ready for the next shoe to drop, be it my shoe, another’s or the collective. I was ingrained with The Doom… from way back. Perhaps sensing the faint, distant wails of that familiar freight train of insanity. I see now the seeds of my self-loathing were reliably stowed and germinating on this bruiser. Feral weeds primed to choke, throttle and take out. If I was lucky, maybe a life sentence.

We lived on Danbury’s Main Street in a low-income three-story walk-up. An apartment lined with cheap wood paneling, holes and roaches. Bedroom wall separating living room was more like a partition in an office cubicle, two feet from the ceiling. I guess so the ceiling fan could be more effective. We lived in three similar places within the next two and a half years before the shit hit the other fan.

My son on his Smurf drums, in our Elm Street apartment (Danbury's Main Street).

Sam and SF

Susanna with her rescuer 'Sam.'

Sam with treasured memorabilia

Sam Lieberman was a mildly retarded fellow from Brooklyn who helped Susanna off the street (out of her car). They lived together for a time in his two-room apartment of which Susanna described as filthy, hardly any furniture and remarkably covered from wall to floor with old movie magazines, clippings, and yesteryear movie star photos. The Opel-Kadette was found soon thereafter with windows broken and all four tires flattened on a Hollywood side street, biting the dust, as seen in Enquirer photo. Before long they would share a kinder place in North Hollywood, as in symbiotically platonic.

Several years after these photos were taken, Susanna would care for Sam as he lost his sight and life to a brain tumor. In the same apartment her son Philip lapsed into fatal hepatic-coma two years prior.

Boxes

A friend of a friend named 'Charlie' wrote the following 'Exploring my Mind'.....it very much reminds me of Michael and Philip's confusing fear-filled world:


Exploring my Mind

Flashlight in hand

Searching cobweb covered corners

Discarded memories in dusty cardboard boxes

On one box are the words 'Do Not Open'

Written by the hand of a child

Shining my light inside the box

I discover three brown paper bags

I open the note marked 'Confidence'

It is filled to the top

With emptiness

The second bag is marked 'Fear'
Bulging and much too heavy to lift
Feeling uneasy about looking inside

I shine my light on the third bag

This one is marked 'Dreams'

Written in colorful letters

This one too is bulging, but as light as a feather

Slowly opening the bag

I suddenly hear the most beautiful music

My ears have ever heard

Gazing inside, my eyes are held captive
By the wonder of it's contents
Visions of hope, love, understanding, happiness, and peace

All of the things that dreams are made of

I know now that there is no reason to look inside the bag marked 'Fear'

I know full well what is inside

Nightmares, broken dreams, disappointment, all- kinds-of abuse, and despair

The weight of the world on a child's shoulders

I understand the emptiness that is felt when self-confidence is stripped away
The heaviness of fear and what it does to a child
The lightness and hope that dreams bring, and just how important dreams are

I turn out my light and awaken

With only a vague memory of a journey

-Charles R. James

The Gnawing Nomad

From the Gnawing Nomad—

For the last nine years I have been working on this bewildering family history….bewildering and painful as it has been, I plodded along incited by chronic, wild coincidence. I became the biographer of my parents and our family. Things have not been easy for many years as the template of mental illness, family abuse and dysfunction kept its roots, bolts, screws, and toothed iron collars firmly in place. I come from or more like; spit forth from a long line of schizophrenics, mental illness, alcoholism and just plain granite statues….loveless connections ad infinitum…freakin’ nada.. Mother, father, brother, kids, ex-wives, grandparents, aunts and uncles, no one ever stayed anywhere and made a home of LOVE. It was always…and I mean always move here to there to here…deny and abuse and destroy who you can….and die. So my effort to get my kids back and try to build a life….raising them and being there for them with any kind of stability certainly was not in the genes….did not come natural. I had not a clue nor a template…..this coupled with my own inherited deficiencies; mercurial self loathing…that has yet to go far away…gnaws at me. Maybe…..subsiding with the tools I have developed to keep at bay; spiritual, mental, physical tools…but they never go away, they constantly gnaw on the hill of refuse of generations of sadness and pain.

Escape from L.A. (the land of mythical proportion).

The 12-step definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.I was insane. Would dive into it like it was a cool, fresh, familiar…and safe…all-embracing padded cell.

Yes, 'Sally' and Eric and me were now a family again, Susanna would wiggle her way onto our couch with pitbull and copious prescription ....delusions do come true.

We found a place behind the Chinese Theatre, on Franklin ave...the top floor, a very seedy place:

This crumbling cinder block of an apartment building was a typical Los Angeles cookie cutter to stuff the masses, more like a small cell-block, four tiers of apartment-lined walkways surrounding a yellow green dumpster-size ‘pool’ shaded by a lone, asphyxiated palm tree. The building was filled with drug dealers and loons. Directly across our 'tier' lived a fellow and his girlfriend; ‘Merlin’ and Tabitha. Merlin, a smug-filled pretender with an arrow-shaped goatee, and a receding dyed black hairline had all the Hollywood Blvd. teenager transients eating out of his hand with phony ‘aura’ readings. They paid premium for his weed too. A typical Hollywood cardboard charlatan. I didn’t like Merlin and he new it, he would soon pay me back for my disdain.

One late night we get heavy knocks on the door (it’s 2am). I go to the peephole in my underwear, “who is it?” I ask. “Police!” boomed the voice. Opened the door and was straightaway yanked onto the walkway finding a twelve-gauge shotgun pressed to my neck. It was the police all right, the LA Gestapo, as they were known. LA citizenry were terrified of them especially the downtrodden. Jaywalking? Fuhgeddabodit. I had friends who were surrounded, handcuffed. Disappeared for days.

Five of them yanked me out with varying displays of weaponry. Especially the one I’ll never forget, icy cool jammed under my chin.

But I guess LA Gestapo had good reason this time. Someone had called the police reporting they heard gun- shots coming from our apartment. I later learned it was Merlin who made that call. The insanity swelled pus-like for more months.

My attempt at lancing this terminal insanity was like a surgeon seeking to remove a brain lesion with a fishing hook. Futile and clueless.

All the while that my mother was on another verge of a many a comeback, she would barely leave her couch and her pitbull 'Chica.' I finally lost my patience with the woman who begged me for a shiner six months prior. I threw my mother out. At wit’s end, frantic …relegating her to the Opel-Kadette and her beloved Chica. I was left to peer ridicule, “You threw your own mother out?!” A friend from Eighty Deuce showed up and readily took Susanna’s place on the couch. Not to worry, I could still make the rent.

Much to my chagrin I wasn’t through with the police. One morning (daylight) we get another foreboding knock on the door. Sally answers it. It was two LAPD detectives looking for Michael Evans. They were looking for me and I was standing right there. “Yes officer that’s me.” I firmly said, trying to sound responsible. They had a warrant for my arrest, triggered by the unpaid penalty of $658.53 that I ‘forgot about’ for child stealing. I was handcuffed and led back to a now familiar place, L.A. County Jail.

My gold chain and a spiritual-cross were stolen in the TV room the second day…. I wept; shaking while the guards searched the culprits. Never found. I was sick of jail and wanted an easier, softer way. I had mentioned to one of my cellmates “at least I wasn’t kicking any serious dru habit," He unknowingly gave me a good ‘get-over’ idea that was right in-line with my old Eighty Deuce philosophy, and my ticket to the ‘easier, softer way’. He said that the jail hospital was a ‘picnic’, rooms to your self with a comfortable bed. Saying you had to be really sick; like convulsions, seizures to be admitted.

I began to devise my plan. I was going to ‘get-over.’

That early evening in a sea of men in blue jump suits we filed into the cavernous, metal-clattering, noisy mess hall. A looked forward to daily event. Hundreds of guys, out of their cells at once, was a raucous and dangerous affair.

The queue began way down the green hall, in-line for the pick-up of the cookie cutter metal tray and mystery slop. I was sweating, nervous. Knowing what I had to do. Had to pull this off. Had to be award winning.

After gathering up my tray and then its slop. I head for my bench and table; begin to swish and froth my spit, working my salivaries overtime. Sit down with my tray, scan the fifty guys at my table and let the show begin. Commenced to spew homogenized slobber from the mouth, rolling the eyes up into the head and falling straight back to the floor, shaking and contorting seizure-like as much possible. “Man down, man down!!” the men at my table yelled. “Man down, man down!!” as they admonished the guards, pointing to the spit-soaked face writhing on the cement floor.

Guards surrounded me and very soon a stretcher appeared. I was taken to the infirmary. Rapidly diagnosed with ‘withdrawal symptoms’ and whisked to the hospital floor, feeling very pleased with my performance. Given a room with no view. And that’s not all.

A room with a bed all right, a metal bed with a flimsy plastic, grueling, tattered mattress with a conjoined bulge at the head that mimicked a pillow, a toilet that constantly covered the floor with water and its contents, a rat that would visit at his pleasure and a chunky metal door that featured a thick window as big as my face and a slot where I received my three dailies. A lone Advil-like pill every 12 hours added to the excitement. Never left that room for 14 days, I wasn’t well. But I got-over!

Released on a hot sunny afternoon with a bus token. But walked the seven miles back to Hollywood…I was free and let the Sun know it. Although was soon re-awakened to my plight when the dumpster-sized yellow pool greeted me with its asphyxiated palm tree. Rock Bottom was not a mirage.

August came; I was trapped, suffocating like a bug in a jar.

I scrambled and began to drive a cab…leasing it for 12-18 hour shifts for two weeks non-stop. One thing on my mind. I told Sally that I was leaving with Eric.

Bought a $99 Greyhound ticket. And for three days and three nights; sitting, curled, crimped, cramped and twisted, my three and half year-old son and I, my treasured tape player/boom box, guitar and a suitcase, fled LA.

Leaving Sally behind. But not very far.

Sometimes a ‘geographic’ isn’t the remedy. ‘Wherever you go, there you are.’

Tom Weaver

I found this comment by Tom Weaver on a related blog. He apparently had met my mother.
I found his words illuminating and to the point and worth posting here. Thanks Tom.

"In the latter-day bio of Susanna Foster, there's not a lot to be happy about but I AM happy to report that the "elder abuse" rumor was wrong wrong wrong -- fuhgeddabout.

All the lurkers come to me at times like this -- again from my e-mailbox:

Susanna did not qualify for the Motion Picture Home -- she didn't have enough "work days" by their definitions. Believe me, it was tried. And every time friends tried to get her SAG work days that would help her qualify (such as a sure-thing guest shot on MURDER SHE WROTE) she deliberately sabotaged them...that was in her quixotic nature.

The NJ Home came about only through the great kindness of Kitty Carlisle Hart, who had appeared with Wilbur Evans (Susanna's ex, the famous baritone) and out of the goodness of her heart bent rules and "made it happen". Mrs. Hart was in charge of the charity in later years... bless her.

Susanna had a tremendous gift. She also had a fiery personality and was her own worst enemy. And especially in later years, a tremendous -- madness took possession of her. It seemed to intensify after her son Philip died in her arms, a sick broken shell of a human at age 33.... but go look at the You Tube videos (www.YouTube.com/MicahVita), and the story they tell, and you will learn that Susanna was a victim -- and then in her own way, victimizer, the keeper of the flame who passed on her family's madness and broken dreams ..... and on, and on.

When I knew her she had been asked to read for a few things and always had a reason for not doing them, so I don't doubt it. I was told they wanted her to come down and read for the Gloria Stuart character in Titanic and she was totally against it. This had gone on as far back as her Universal days, truth be told, from all I was able to gather. She had a lot of fear it seemed. She was an amazing person, well read, eccentric in an artistic (good) way, giving, and all of the other superlatives, but she never scratched the surface of what she could do talent wise, and probably in her personal life as well. Still, she's certainly missed on this part of the orb."

Further pleas to The Father-figment......twisted half- truths and bed rock denial.

Eighty Duece-Philip clowning in much healthier times.

9-30-81 Dear Dad,

I’m very sorry for the long delay but my wife Sally has put me through hell. As I remember the last I told you Sally was stealing from tenants in the building we worked so hard to get, of course we were fired and I lost BOTH jobs because of it (12-80). Sally agreed to leave Eric with me and to move in with her parents (Orange County) and seek psychiatric care. Mom moved in with us to help out. In the course of about three months Sally would come to visit every two or three weeks. I desperately tried to maintain a family for my boy. On the night of 3/3/81 we were expecting Sally for a visit, I had to go to work. Mom was home alone with Eric. Mom was expecting Sally for her regular visit. The bell rang, mom opened the door and there stood Sally and two thugs. They proceeded to give mom a black eye (I have police lab photos) and Sally took Eric out of bed and made off with him. Mom managed to call me at work. And I was home in three minutes. I managed to catch the two thugs as they were trying to serve court papers on mom. A shouting match ensued me and the two thugs I told them all the things Sally had done to me (stealing and lying etc.) Their expressions changed completely, I then realized that Sally had lied to them too!! Still they were intent on doing what they set out to do; court papers suing me for divorce and suing me for custody of my son and a restraining order keeping me away from her parents house. I was verbally able to make one of them attack me. I defended myself and was not hurt. At the beginning mom called the police, they came long after they had all gone including Eric! This is all so very hard to put down on paper but I’m trying to give you an idea of what happened. The court date was 3/20/81. I obtained much evidence against Sally and her mental fitness. I could not afford a lawyer and Legal Aid cannot help in civil matters is what it came down to. The judge would not look at my evidence because my “legal papers were not in order.” Sally was awarded custody only on the strength of her father paying for everything that day in court. I was awarded a visitation that weekend, I picked him up that night and never brought him back and stayed on the run. Seven months later I got a message from Sally through a mutual friend of ours in essence saying she wanted to work it out with me alone. I finally called and she said basically what she told our friend. She begged me to come and see her at her job so we could work everything out. . We talked for four hours seemingly coming to terms. Threes days later Sally and the Orange County detectives were at my door arresting me and taking my son. I WAS LIED TO AGAIN! I spent 14 days in jail. Mom busted her butt to get me out. The Battle has Just Begun! In the meantime I’m desperately trying to find work, to get a good lawyer. There are also many positive things; the soundtrack of Phantom of the Opera has been released with mom’s voice and pictures all over it but unfortunately it means another legal battle. By a twist of fate I’ve gotten a little involved with the L.A. Viennese Folks-Opera and the head’s name is Derek Scott who says he worked with you at the Pierre Hotel. They are all great fans of yours, he even remembers meeting Philip and I. There is so much more to tell. I can’t call because we don’t have a phone right now. If it’s all right write back and let me know if I can call collect and give you the whole story. Love Michael 1130 Colorado blvd Glendale, Calif. 91205.

Well not exactly. I did get a message from Sally that she would like to meet and discuss reconciliation. I was excited and wanted more than anything to ‘reconcile.’ Oh, that warm, familiar and hopeful haze again. We did meet at a bowling alley down near AL and June’s for several hours…. cozy like. Sally assured me that charges were never filed, that she pressured her father to hold off. If nothing changes, nothing changes. My head was up my ass (an unveiling chronic problem, to say the least).

Two days later Orange County detectives zeroed in on the Bell and took Eric from Susanna. I wasn’t there. Angry? Beyond hopeless? There isn’t a description really.

Several days later, I was coming home from a late night taxi job. Was pulled over by the Glendale police (the Opel-Kadette was missing a couple of tail lights). Cop ran a check and my nasty habit of tossing traffic tickets (moving violations) caught up with me. I was hauled in for several outstanding, multi-town traffic warrants.

That night while awaiting my fate in the holding pen…Police-Man was overjoyed to have found an outstanding felony warrant, computer posted in my name, “Wanted for Child Stealing….”

I was shipped to L.A. County Jail (future residence of O.J.) a place much like my old stomping ground Riker’s Island. But before I could face the music in Santa Anna, the “I hope you can read” place that kept me on the run, I had to first answer half-a-dozen Failure-to-Appear warrants in municipalities spread across Los Angeles County. Here I was… again, 10+ years later, answering the 5am wake up clarion of the cellblock. Daisy-chained to half a dozen other evildoers, bused about to various towns and holding pens, a forced showdown to pay the piper-of-denial.

This went on for 10 days or so. Then it was down to Santa Anna to face the felony rap. Sat in the Orange County Jail for two weeks before the judge would see me. Comparatively, the Orange County Jail was a ‘softer’ place; we had sun and air on the roof and Sara Lee German Chocolate cake (cripes, it sure looked and tasted like it). But I still wept and fretted, jails no fun, roof or cake.

My day in court came; the familiar mom was there. After some heavy negotiations between my legal aide guy and the prosecutor, the charges were reduced to a misdemeanor. A fine with time served. $637.53. Three months to pay.

Still with mom at the Bell, I get a job as a security guard. Doing guard duty for ABC Studios; General Hospital, Barney Miller, Fridays, a take off of Saturday Night Live. Fridays is where I had my failed autograph encounter with Al Jerreau. Kept an eye on Michael Richards cutting his teeth (Kramer on Seinfeld). General Hospital was a fun set; I ate their catered food and met an actor who took voice lessons from my father years ago. The irony was never far.

I wanted so badly to be one of these people, felt so close, knew I had some talent, knew I had the “stuff “ even a technician…just needed a break. But felt so small, clearly less-than, beaten. If I could only get a break.

In the guardhouse, late at night I began to do what I had never done…write. I wrote songs and poems.

Songs that would rail against Sally with titles like “On Empty,” “Fooling Yourself,” “Keep it to Yourself,” “Stealing Love,” and “Till You Meet the Creature One Day.” Songs where I found the spiritual connection; “Position on My Mission,” and “Moon Love.” And my deep sorrow; “A Man Can Cry.” Then the heartstrings of denial and loss would consume me; “Try it Again,” “Looking Lonely,” “Inside of You.” Writing a firm“amen” after every composition. Set out listening to a lot of gospel, Andre Crouch’s “Don’t Give Up,” Playing it over and over. Tears streaking my face…. Don’t Give Up Michael. But sadly, it would be revealed that I was much more of a believer in the delusion of a Sally, Eric and Michael family than what any God could do. My spiritual awakening was an irksome process....until the feigned suicide attempt...much later on.


This piece grabbed my heart from somewhere, I copy it-

‘No man can possibly know what life means, what the world means, what anything means until he has a child and loves it and then the whole universe changes and nothing will ever again seem exactly as it seemed before.’ –Lafeadio Hearn. I write; “To Eric Michael, my light in the fog.” I treasure this notebook today.


Philip and Jimmy

Philip would go back and forth to New York staying with his East Coast young man lover Jimmy LightFoot…Jimmy was an African/American Indian who for many years worked for the Transit Authority and for just as long lived at 75th and Columbus Ave. Did have a gentle soul about him…just liked young guys, although never thought of him as a predator. Loved New York and practiced Puerto Rican “Black” magic, forget it’s name, a spiritual mix of magic, candles, powder formulas, icons and Catholicism. Philip and Susanna were ready recipients of Jimmy’s incantations. Jimmy cared for Philip and could always be depended on for a quick rescue.


Letters from Susanna to Philip and Jimmy, dripping with delusion (and sycophant back scratching)--

We Will Overcome!! Sept. 19, 1981 Glendale, Calif. 91205 Dear Philip—How does this hit you—and do you think you could come up with a really good idea, whether you could script it or not, with Jerry Lewis as a symphonic conductor and me as the soprano leading lady (about 45)? I have noted Jerry Lewis mellowing a great deal lately and I’ve seen him do some things on film lately that are pure genius. The French, you know think he is one. I used to hate him as a performer, but over a period of time (particularly since he’s older) have come to respect his talent. It would have to be funny in a subtle way (and he’s learned subtlety) I have no fundamental idea—just to have a marvelous conductor who is as mad as they all are. But is not the Jerry Lewis of old. He’s capable of moving you and his comedy today is capable of subtly. What my character in this would be? I have no idea except (whether she is funny or not) to be full of love and temperament. And of course the score would be full of beautiful music. Can you come up with something? He made a new movie recently (which I saw clips of on TV) in which he was superb. I don’t know the name of it, but I believe he directed and produced it. I have a strong hunch (and my psychic feelings have been extraordinary lately—as Michael can tell you), there is something here. Philip Castanza can provide you with the info on this recent Jerry Lewis movie and might be able to get it run for you. Please think about this as I know you have the imagination (original) for a true idea. I definitely am writing Russell Johnson and will send him a program of the festival in Beverley Hills, maybe my new record album of “Phantom” if I can get another one given to me, Lots of love to you TELL JIMMY---IF HE RETIRES AND COMES OUT HERE, WE’LL INCORPORATE! (If I hit it, of course—and I know it’s going to be so!) All love Mommy. Don’t forget to try Mickey Rooney, he’s working long and difficult hours—but his road manager don’t give up on. PPPS—Jean Arthur’s brother is a big fan of mine and is begging me to come out and autograph 300 stills of me. Which I will do! You know I love Jean Arthur and know her. She’s teaching acting in Northern Calif. And has my old “Driftwood,” in Carmel.

October 9, 1981 Glendale, Calif.

Dear Philip and Jimmy,

There’s so much to write and there’s so much happening this month I just don’t know where to begin. There have been several letters I’ve started to you and never get sent off because there was always more to come. First of all so many things happening for me to start work and sing again. #1is I must have (minor, I guess) surgery to remove a ‘spur’ on the left (up inside) my nose. I have complete faith in the doctor, which is a miracle for me, as I don’t like doctors in general or lawyers. This will be performed the end of this month or first part of next. He believes and so do I, its impacting the infection in my sinuses and causing the slight huskiness in my voice. Thanks God (and Jimmy) there is nothing wrong with my vocal chords! My hand is shrinking as is my upper arm and there is no reason for me not to sue that doctor for malpractice. The operation that will restore my hand to normal (and this comes from a doctor I really trust, miracle #2!) would cost $5000 and Medi-Cal would not pay for that. So I’m going to sue him to pay for it and ‘damages.’ The pain for 1 ½ years is enough, let alone the fact I cannot play the piano with my left hand. I’ve been extraordinarily psychic lately----so many things that I cannot enumerate. I also feel I can do great things, I don’t mean this in a stupid way—I mean with the help of God and my true friends I can sing more beautifully than ever I did before, be in command of myself as I never was in the past, and make life secure for you, Eric, Jimmy (if he wants it) and perhaps some minimum of happiness to people in the world. Please! I have not gone mad! All I need is my voice and I will do some good in the world before I die. I’m much tougher, in what I believe is the right way. And I will make everything better for us all (we may have to incorporate—after all he (it) doesn’t need money up there but we sure as hell need it down here. How about a remake of Frank Capra’s ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ (Jimmy Stewart) with a woman in that tour-de-force role? Have you ever seen it? I saw it the other night. Capra’s not working and available. This letter is so crazy because I can’t explain the myriad of social engagements I have this month—all leading to my goal—our goal---getting Eric back. And getting you well Philip and helping to make all of us happy! Believe me, my whole soul is in it. All my love to you both, Mommy PS: Philip! An autograph seeker asked me to sign a special post office envelope and stamp w/ Al Jolson in his famous pose as “Mammy”--- I wrote on it “What a love!” and signed my name. Try and get it at the post office.

I cringe with this one....viscerally overwhelmed with 'gag reflex.' I will always be amazed at how 'denial' can turn someone, a decent-soul.... into a malignant mad man.

12/23/81 Dear Dad, Just got your card yesterday and was very glad to hear from you. Well since my bad news letter to you many things have changed, for the better I must say! Sally and I have gotten back together; I think we love each other more now than ever (my prayers were answered). All the events of the past year could fill a small horror book but I feel our determination is equaled in working it out. I do hope that one day that one-day we can spend a holiday season or any season together and you can see your grandson. Who will be four 1/13/82. He’s just beautiful. Mom is attempting a comeback; about two months ago she made an appearance at the National Film Institute Convention in Universal City along with Lana Turner and many others. The response and support has just been incredible along with financial help from local fans. She’s been getting calls from all over the country, Europe and Australia! This just seems to be the tip of the iceberg. I can’t possibly put it in one letter all that’s happened. I’ll try to write once a month and let you know everything. I pray the next year gives health and happiness to you and Masako. Merry Xmas! All my love, Michael My new address: 6871 Franklin Ave. Hollywood, CA. 90028
My father… in red ink…crosses out “my new address” and writes “void.” I guess from when he tried to write back a month or two later.

Mom was always just about to re-ignite her career, was always on the verge; offered guest spots on ‘Love Boat,’ soap operas etc.* But would get sick or something when reality got close.
I don’t know about Philip but I always believed her…any day now for years. Accompanied her several times to these functions and the response was impressive. At one, Bob Hope spoke; we sat with Ann Gillian, as Susanna signed autographs. Susanna did garner attention. Countless times I would imagine my new car, my new condo, and my return to Rome. Denial can be so textured, vivid, a wonderful fuel source.

Here’s a short story Philip wrote about three months before he died, Collected among the huge piles of memorabilia and chaos in my mother's apartment. It recalls a distant day on Eighty Duece (I left punctuations/phrasing as they were, Philip and I never did learn the 'correct' way to write):

A Perfect Day-

I woke up earlier than mom and michael one sunday morning when we were living in apt 3A so I guess I was about 8 years old because we lived for two years in each of three seperate apts at 32 w. 82st. The very first thought I had was “I wanna walk Barney to the east end of castle lake, where i could sit on the rock with him and have the sun on my back while I coaxed him to go swimming. It was a beautiful summer’like spring morning so I only wore a short sleeved blue and white patterned shirt, blue jeans and sneekers. Mommy always said once I got somthing in my head-somthing I desired-I either achieved or got it (or died as children often do in their imaginations). So anyway I quietly got up and asked Barney if he wanted to go bye’bye. He said “sure” the way only Barney could. So we softly left. We did exactly what I wanted to do. Boy, it was a beautiful day. And mom, to this day doesn’t know that Barney went swimming unless she reads this or you tell her or both. I don’t snitch myself. For me, at that time, this kinda thing was MY own paradise. Just a few blocks from home and I WAS home. and viceversa. when I got back we didn’t see anybody except a few kids I knew ftom accross the street. I began talking to one of them who was a year or so older than I and he had a pretty big plastic toy truck. It was about the size of Barney’s head. He asked me if I would trade Barney for the truck. I said no. BARNEY LOOKED INDIGNANT. He was though, glad to be home when we got upstairs ‘cause mom and michael were awake and he (barney) was dry and naturally sniffing in the kitchen. I don’t remember the rest of the day but I do remember the night.

Michael and I had pushed our beds together and seeing how we had the television in our room and the next day was school my brother and I got under our quilt and sheet covers and mom and Barney lay in between and we watched The Late Show movie about a British highwayman with all the lights off. Boy, that was a great day.The TV was like a fire’place telling a story. It was love it was home it was peace. and I’ll never forget it if I lived to be 200 years old. Just the four of us. it was home. The Result?

Thirty two pointless failure laden years.

My dear Philip, Pointless? Not at all.

Search and seizure and the Stepford Son.....

'Softened' West Los Angeles Police Department evidence photo of Susanna's shiner.

REVIEW:

September 1980--

Out of no-where while getting ready to move from our Van Nuys apartment, not knowing where we were going, Eric G. recommended us (naively) for a 60 unit complex in West L.A. a couple of blocks west of La Cienega, a pleasant neighborhood. We interviewed with the owners of the building; Mr. and Mrs. Carlos Chong, a soft-spoken duo that took to us right away (there you go, that first impression).

Got the job, which included a roomy two-bedroom apartment with a private garden/courtyard. A nice place.

It seemed that my vague hopes were answered. This was our opportunity. A golden opportunity to finally get things right. Sally and I were finding God; acquaintances would visit with Jesus lessons. Simultaneously, I’d drag our little family down to the Crenshaw district for rousing gospel services with Reverend Fred Price. I started to pay attention. I was still driving the cab, an occasional gig on the weekend and learning my new duties as a ‘premier’ apartment manager. I was charged and filled with hope.

Al and June---The Cave Snake and the Lemming:

Sally’s parents; Al and June, moved to Fullerton, California (near Disneyland) from Connecticut a couple of years after Sally and I. Al who loved his Manhattans, preferred leaving a smile up to the other fellow and where a smirk could break his face. Showing as much emotion as a German Cave Snake (Lampropelitis pyromelana Germana) laying eggs. A difficult man to be around. And June; a sniveling, persistently giggling-nervous lap-woman who treasured drinking her Vodka Martini’s in Al’s cave.

Al never liked me, feeling all our previous problems were of my making. Al would ignore all whispered-entreaties by me on his once troubled daughter.

December 1980—

8560 Olympic Blvd. is an address that’s hard to forget, insanity extraordinaire took place there.

A typical West L.A. apartment building. Only a few years old, spanning all of the Olympic Blvd block with terraced balconies and a ground level garage. I was proud of our new position, determined to make it work.

One afternoon I was changing a lock in an upstairs unit when suddenly I heard yelling coming from the first floor. Running down the stairs to investigate, I found the door to our apartment opened, the yelling coming from within. I found Sally cornered in the living room by two of our tenants. One of the tenants crying and yelling at Sally, “That’s my blouse, and my gold cross!” Sally was balling as well. A horrific scene, what the hell was going on?!

As it were, Sally was stealing from the apartments and wearing some of these things while collecting rents! Answering the doorbell while modeling stolen property in front of the victims. Not to mention the medicine cabinets that were pilfered. I was staggered, shocked, bewildered…and fucking completely dumbfounded. Cant’ even begin to get the ‘moment’.

We lost the job and with the inherent chaos that ensued, I lost the cab job as well. My taxi boss wanted nothing to do with me when he heard the (I’m sure, the twisted version) story. I went back to him several times asking for a second chance…some ‘maybes’ but ….no dice.

Sally left to go live with her parents, promising to seek psychiatric care and promising to get better! Was emphatic… “I am going to get better Michael…you’ll see!” Mr. Chong saw my anguish and dilemma, feeling sympathy for my toddler son Eric and me. He let us temporarily stay in a one-bedroom unit he had vacant. My mother moved in to help. And I set out to find a job, weak kneed.

Trying again....and again

My mother, Eric and I began to settle into a routine with the promise to Mr. Chong that we’d find a place to live as soon as I could get back on my feet. Sally would visit every couple of weeks; the three of us would make day trips to Disney Land, The zoo, etc. I had the dream (a malignant delusion) that we would all heal and live happily ever after. Sally would write telling me of her progress in therapy and would explain with things like; “ I know I have something wrong with me, I want to get better and I will.”

It was a Friday night, I was at work and we were expecting Sally for a visit Saturday morning.

I suddenly get a frantic call from my mother in the middle of my car parking; “They’ve taken the baby, they’ve taken the baby!!” Screaming, “Come home now!!”

I jump in our beat –up Opel Kadett (a car my mother had been given months before). What the hell was going on, agonizing with every Wilshire stoplight I breached.

Run into the apartment and find my mother in hysterics. She’s frantic, “The intercom rang, I answered…. it was Sally…I buzzed her in…when she came to our door I opened it…she was with two men and a woman, they barged in, shoved me aside, one held me down, while Sally and the others took Eric from his bed!!”

“Hit me, Hit me”, my mother screamed, tears streaming down her face, crouched like a sumo wrestler, hands whirling, pointing to her face….”hit me, hit me…Michael…. HIT ME…they’ve taken the baby!!…They’ve taken the baby!”

I did, I became the Stepford Son; a suddenly hypnotized, wholly limbic robot.

I punched her in the face as hard as I could.

She fell to the floor, gripping her eye, moaning… “Good Michael good!”

Running back outside, I found the two nitwits on the steps trying to hand me papers. Shoving all aside ran down the side street, finding Sally behind the wheel of an idling car with my son in its back. Seeing me, she gunned it… racing past me. As she passed, I ran behind screaming for the police, while Eric looked at me puzzled through the rear window. Eric in the window turned the corner and disappeared.

I rushed back to the front of the building confronting the two…one of which I learned later was her father’s brother and who (allegedly) raped Sally as a young teen. I screamed at him and to the rest of Olympic…as he frantically tried to make me take the papers, “You fucking idiot, she’s a liar and a thief, POLICE, POLICE! You have no idea what you’re doing you fucking ASSHOLE, POLICE, POLICE!!” The nitwit grabbed me and that’s all I needed. I threw him in the bushes and began to Eighty Deuce beat him (mom taught me good…how to get someone’s dumbbell-goat). His friend knocked me from behind, threw the papers at my feet and they both ran. All the while, I’m screaming “POLICE, POLICE!” at the top of my screeching lungs.

By the time I get back to the apartment my mother has a terrific shiner sitting on her left eye. And when the police finally do arrive she tells them in detail and veracity how Eric was abducted and how the “older one” belted her. She was brilliant (in many respects). The Papers? 1) Suing me for divorce, 2) Suing me for custody of my son, 3) Restraining order keeping me away from Al and June’s house. Al had sicked his fellow cave-snake lawyer on me.

December 1980-

ANOTHER desperate letter to the figment-of-dad:

Daddy— Sorry for the long silence but I’ve been through a lot. Sally and I have separated and I have my boy. After three years of marriage I discovered Sally has some very deep mental problems. I hope the holidays have been well to you. There has been so much that has been happening, so hard to explain in a letter. Love Michael and Eric.

My new address 8560 W. Olympic Los Angeles, CA. 90035 (###) ###-####

I was betrayed, so familiar, and so comfortable. A self-fulfilled prophesy. My son was gone. Taken hostage.

The date in Santa Anna family court was March 20^th. I had lees than three weeks to build the case.

I thought it would be open and shut, why… I had the letters from Sally with her self-admitted pathologies and Mr. Chong stating the reason we were fired. But I knew having a lawyer would better my chances. But of course… I had no money.

So I desperately went up into the hills and sought out my new friend Charles Nelson Reilly for help.

Mr. Reilly was aghast at my story, “My God, Michael I’ll do anything to help!” He made several calls while we sat. Talked to a judge friend, talked to his lawyer.

I was revitalized, now confident things would be ok when Mr. Reilly set-up a meeting for me to see his lawyer in Newport Beach.

Borrowing a car from a friend, I headed down to affluent Newport Beach.

The affluent made it more definite that I would be vindicated ( I was convinced).

I had friends in high places. Al certainly didn’t.

Mr. Reilly's lawyer heard the story, took a look at my letters as I wore my heart on my sleeve…. telling all.

A few days went by, Mr. Reilly would never call me back, nor his lawyer.Understandably, they wanted nothing to do with our insanity.

But my mother and I were confident that between the letters and her faux assault and battery charge against the nitwit… we would prevail.

March 20^th was a Friday, Susanna, my friend Eric G. and I sat in the Family Court of Santa Anna waiting hall. Santa Anna was having a heat spell, the air-conditioning barely worked…it was hot and miserable, court sucks in any weather. Al’s appendage and I waited to be called into the judge’s chambers.

We waited.

Al’s Lawyer reminded me of Al Hirsch, remember Al Hirsch the first and only manager for The Sugar Blues Band? The fellow that always seemed dirty with a jaundice-like day-glow that haloed his every move? Who coveted little boys? Remember him? The Susanna Foster Chronicles-Phantom of the Heart: Mom's Sugar Blues Band...and the rock and roll manager.

Sitting in the Judge’s chamber, the judge first scanned the Al- dog’s papers and then asked for mine.

I handed him Sally and Mr. Chong’s letters. It didn’t take long for the judge to say, “Mr. Evans’, your papers are not in order. I’m ordering temporary custody to Mrs. Evans pending a 90 day review.”

I began to cry and plead with the judge, “Can’t you see what she’s done?” “You can’t do this!” “See right here she admits she’s crazy!” He didn’t want to hear it. He ordered that I was to have Eric the first and third weekend of the month pending the ninety-day go over, seeing as though it was the third weekend of the month I could pick Eric up that evening and return him on Sunday. I didn’t hear “temporary,” I didn’t hear “every other weekend.” All I heard was “Custody to Mrs. Evans.”

As Susanna and Eric G. waited in the car, I knocked on Al and June’s door. Al answers holding Eric in one arm and a Manhattan in the other, saying through scrunched lips, he hisses, “I hope you can read.” I grabbed my son as if he was the Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Al was right I couldn’t read. I never looked back.

I was on the run… a soon-to-be- felony child stealing warrant on my head.

Susanna called her sister Vicki (Baby) in Pomona asking if I could stay with her. I did briefly, witnessing first hand her brand of the Larson insanity. An insanity that was repulsive even to me. Her dilapidated house, her non-stop drinking, the sleazy boyfriend whom she’d sit on his lap and uncontrollably urinate across his thigh. Her pretty and lost daughter Suzanne (17). Not knowing that I was witnessing the genesis of her alcoholism and schizophrenia.

And how Vicki would use her pretty daughter, forcing her to sexual favor for the urinated thigh. A horror show.

One of our hide outs wasa room (The Bell Motel) in Glendale with Susanna for many months. The three

of us in two beds. Sorting things out, hand to mouth.

The author of the 'Whatever Became' series (of which Susanna was featured twice) Richard Lamparski came to visit The Bell Motel. Was putting together a new “Whatever Became Of…?” book.

All puffed up, self- righteous and happy and smiley trio in their motel room...with a warrant felony on my head.

I was immortalized again.....'What Ever Became of....Michael?' A Freudian can of worms.

Philip's passing...