A Celebrated Family's Fatal Illusion.
The story of my parents, brother, others and me.
(c) 2009-20015 Michael David Evans--
The best way to comprehend the S.F. Chronicles would be to start where the narrative took its first breath...on January 3, 2009.
Consider it a vast, 'comprehensive' 5th Step.
Sally and I began work at the Motion Picture and Television Home/Hospital in Calabasas, California.Mainly a retirement/nursing home for actors and people of the entertainment industry. I enjoyed it. Maybe the seeds for the work I do today (nurse).
I would, sixteen years later, desperately try to get my mom in there...she was at the very least ...eligible. But it was too easy, made too much sense.
I was the only aide/orderly in the place who could shower Johnny Weissmuller (of Tarzan fame), he was afflicted with “wet brain” a form of dementia brought on by alcohol abuse. He was a big man and could become combative with his caregivers. I would cajole and humor, “Come on Johnny, let’s get in the shower so you can give me that Tarzan yell.” I was asking him to be Tarzan, and he couldn’t wait. He’d get in that shower and go, “aahooohaaahaaooohahaaa”until he was squeaky clean.I felt pretty good about that, loved to tell the story.
Johnny W. is considered the first (and arguably the best Tarzan), was a world-class swimmer, won five gold medals in the 1924-1928 Olympics.He had one of those gold medals in his room in his bedside table drawer, he showed it to me…later I was told it was his last one, he had sold the rest. Soon it would come up missing, was apparently stolen by someone at the Motion Picture Hospital. Johnny Weissmuller - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The Motion Picture Hospital transferred him to another facility then blamed it on that nursing home, is how remember it.
I worked by and large evening shifts, three to eleven. For several days there was a hum around the hospital of a man in a terminal stage of cancer that was an astonishing psychic.Told that all he had to do was hold something that belonged to you and would astound with truth.
Near the end of my shift one night I went to his room looking for some psychic affirmations. I found a welcoming small, frail, fifty something man sitting on his bed.
Sitting next to him, he asks me for something that belonged to me, something to hold. I give him my ring. He cupped it, fingered it, clasped it, and kneaded it like a piece of dough, busy eyes closed tight, like watching a movie on his lids.
A few moments went by when he lowered his head and let out a deep sigh. I apprehensively asked, “well?” He made no bones about it... "I see so much sadness."… he had felt and envisioned a great deal of sickness and pain for my lot, for years to come.
Sally was pregnant when we got married……I didn’t know it, but would soon find out. My feelings on being a 'family man'? Ambiguity was the core principle.
Eric was born January 13th (Friday) 1978 @ UCLA hospital. I wasn’t there, I had a gig that night on the Queen Mary (the floating ship in Long Beach) gettingthe news over the phone, “it’s a boy!”…I was out of the blue-thrilled, I whooped and hollered, surprising myself. With sudden pride announced to the audience. Got down to the hospital the next day.
A son, my son…wow. Eric Michael Evans, naming Eric after my best friend Eric Gothelf whom I played with in Cheeba, Eric G. was a significant reason I headed for California (along with my mother being there), he had left a couple of years before, joining the disco group “Hughes Corporation” …. “Rock the Boat, don’t rock the boat baby.” Eric had some success as a player in California (Wha-Koo), now a sound editor (ADR) for Warner Brothers. I played with him in a couple of local L.A. bands (Brass Knuckles). I loved Eric G. and was thoroughly envious of him. Sally and I gave Eric godfather status.It never took, Eric and Eric never bonded of which I had hoped for. Maybe because our collective joint-insanity of 'instant gratification' wasn't conducive to family bonds. SF, her first grandchild, was in it for the fun too. Many pictures and smiles and hoots and hollers but....nobody really cared...really.
Sadly, my dear son Eric would carry the same gene of schizophrenia that Susanna's sister Kathleen was stricken with. Not to mention all the other 'versions' of mental illness that my family served up and passed on.
He's now thirty one, struggles. A huge brute of a man with a heart as big as the sky and the courage of an African beast. He tries so hard every day...one day at a time.
Eric and Eric
Now looking back there was a subtle shift in me… although that shift was nothing like the seismic one that shook my core, eight years later when his mother would abandon both the kids...forcing me to place them in foster home. Twenty fours years later the aftershocks of my choices still moan and contort. I’ve done them the best I knew. I was whacked and wracked, as we all were...for generations! I have so desperately tried to make sense for many years…ill prepared for a life that I could see and feel but could never quite get-down for so long. As most of my familial skeletons can attest.
Eric made a family, I loved this kid.
This is very hard, trying to resurrect through the fog of broken fantasy…a spotty overview at best.
I tighten-up and rationalize with waves of that familiar denial. Why am I doing this?
In January 1977 'Sally', the Bonnevilleand I and left for California with everything we owned, back seat and trunk piled high. Our stash was stocked for the trip as well; garden variety stimulants and the celebratory bottles of wine (and beer) when we crossed the California border. We had a plan.Miss Match meets Mr. Fuse--the template was forged. It took ten days; the car broke down in Texas.I think Philip went back to NYC. But we were on our way to a dream-come-true...we thought.
The California of Insanity Quest......(gratefully abridged).....
Arriving in California we headed to my mother's motel room in Glendale (two years after coming to California she was still in a motel room).
It was late night, Susanna opened the door in her classic 'men's shirt'-close-to nude attire ..she was overjoyed to see us, and to meet Sally. We were home.
Stayed on Susanna's floor for several weeks until we could save money for a place of our own.
The first order was to find jobs. Sally had been a nurse’s aide. She got a job at a local nursing home and suggested I apply. I did and became a nurse’s aide (orderly). Sally and I did the night shift together.
After that first night I met my mother at 7am in a local Mexican bar down the street. We shared several margaritas together, I wept in my drink. Shaken by the kind of work I was asked to do.Susanna also worked the night shift at a photo processing plant. Later, I think I worked there too. Maybe for a few days.
We found a Burbank one-bedroom apartment. Got a used bed, a couple of chairs, dishes, pots and pans at the local Salvation Army.
Sally was pretty, sweet, and wholly charming. Had a disarming way with people. There wasn’t much not to like on that first impression.
At the nursing home Sally befriended a couple. The man’s mother was a resident. The couple was looking to bring the mother home to live with them and approached Sally about private duty.
We struck –up an agreement that Sally and I would share the private duty and keep our ‘day’ jobs.
It seemed like an ideal situation, the couple was pleased that they found such ‘first-class’ people for their mom and Sally and I were going to make some needed extra money.
Our new private duty employers were kind and generous; they liked this young couple that was just starting out on their own. They gave us things for our new apartment; vacuum cleaner, blender, toaster, furniture etc.
One morning Sally asked me to try on this ruby stud earring (for my pierced ear), asked where she got it… “oh I had it.” Looked good, I wore it to my private duty job that day.
A few days later the man of the house informed me that some of his wife’s jewelry was missing, that he believed my ruby stud was hers. He also believed that Sally was wearing his mother’s gold cross and chain, noticed it when she came on duty.
They were furious, threatened to call the police if the jewelry wasn’t returned.
It was all returned. We were fired, I confronted Sally, I don’t remember the “reason” given, she charmed and disarmed.
My old friend Denial was now sprouting new heads.
Sally and I married on June 18th, 1977 in a rent-a-chapel in Inglewood (I think), near LAX.
Our wedding day....'Sally' and Mr. 'Fro-wig (put it on for the photo).
All of us would eventually take Susanna's lead and seek 'healing' in the land of milk
and honey. SF held sway over others beside Philip and I (SF in the middle between Rickey and Skippy). It would simply be another set-up for another tragic chapter.
Dad- Sorry I haven’t written sooner but a lot of things have been going on. I’ve been on the road with the band and I’ll be back and forth all summer. The last I heard from mom is that she broke her arm but otherwise she has been so happy since she’s been out there.
Philip is very ill in the hospital, he’s been vomiting blood and has malignant cysts on his pancreas, I’m really not sure if they are malignant but that’s what Philip says. I’m talking to the doctors Monday. They are operating sometime late next week, he has his own phone, he’d be surprised and very happy to hear from you. Please call me too! (####) ###-####
Lot’s a love, Michael and Paula
Philip’s # (###) ###-####
P.S. Ask for Philip Foster because he was there before and still owes money.
In many of the letters from this period, I found that my father would make little responses to things I would say in my letters to him. I’ve inserted with parentheses.
1/26/76
Dear Dad, Sorry haven’t written sooner but have been on the road for about 4 weeks with the band trying to pull in some money. It’s getting rough. Connecticut is getting so sterile, a lot of clubs are cutting out live entertainment and just playing records. Everybody here seems to be getting so cold in body and soul. (The whole world)
I’m having trouble with my voice. I think partly because of this lousy freezing weather.
I’d really like to move to a better climate, preferably out west, and go back to school for voice and dance (no future, show biz very hard—no permanence-learn about or sell instruments? to high school/colleges-take years to build) I’m trying to save now for that but it’s rough.
Philip is very sick, he’s still drinking, he’s so lost, it’s heartbreaking, Dad you wouldn’t believe the mind he’s got, he’s a genius, he just won’t face certain things, it’s very complicated.
He really wants to see me and I’ve got to see him. And I know he’d love to hear from you!
We’ve all got to find a solution! He’s a part of us all!
Both you and mom are great in your own right! You’ve given Philip and I a great instinct for music and countless other things. There are so many things I’d love to discuss with you and I know someday soon I will.
If you have ideas about helping Philip and or what I can do to help my career write and tell me. I’m building up my arsenal now for both of these things and this year I’m going to wage an all out attack! (good attitude)
Love, Michael
PS- I saw a photograph of you on TV, it was on “To Tell the Truth”, they showed the album cover of ‘Desert Song’ with you and Kitty Carlisle and there you were I “flipped my lid”.
March 14, 1976
Dear Dad,
Sorry I haven’t written sooner though Philip’s condition is a lot better, he’s out in California with Mom, last time I talked to them they seemed pretty happy. I had to write and let you know what’s happening, we’ll be writing soon but send us some pictures because they were fascinating. Try to call us up I think we could talk a lot better (###) ###-####
PS- I really think we should get together, sooner or later. PS- *happy birthday
Love Michael
*Happy birthday? August 5 was Wib’s birthday,
The summer of ‘76 I had separated from Paula, leaving her ever so righteously, she didn’t want Philip living with us, she was adamant. And I was too…“My God Paula, it’s my brother…It’s the ONLY right thing to do!!”I was going to get him better; my Connecticut life-style was certainly conducive.And I wanted my freedom. More importantly, I think she was coming to her senses.
And I needed an excuse to stay at the YMCA and on friends’ living room floors. The illusion of freedom coincided with unceasing, shots to the foot.
While waiting for the final divorce decree, I met my subsequent future ex-wife, mother of my future kids and the one with 'inherent personality disorder.'....'Sally'. I would painfully learn through the next fifteen years....that IPD (inherent personality disorder) would take on a contagion-like seep of my very brain matter e.g. 'Autobiography in Five Short Chapters.' Sadly, it took me many years to 'read' that fifth chapter.
October 19, 1976
Dear Dad,
Sorry I couldn’t write sooner but my address changed too. I just got your letter. Paula and I are getting divorced sad but true but better news Philip and I are back together and he’s doing great. He just graduated from a six week program and living with me. I finally got a decent car again and we both would really like to see you, if you think it would really be all right to come down for a couple of days, we could get a room. We’re going back out west in about 8 weeks. Please write and tell me what you think!
Love Michael
Philip, 'Sally' and I were now living together in Harford, Connecticut. 145 Oak St. smack dab in the middle of‘Little Puerto Rico’, a rough neighborhood. Sally was 20, I was almost 26, and Philip 25. I had quit the band and was now parking cars for Hartford Jai-lai. (What was I thinking?)
Sally and I would visit Philip at the ‘six-week program’ at the NorwichStateHospital.I guess they weren’t necessarily therapeutic visits, the thrill was smuggling him a joint and or two.We all drank way too much...but Philip more, was physically abusive to Sally. One night he dragged her around the apartment, throwing her in a bathtub full of water, with her clothes on. He was loud and belligerent when under the influence, a Jekyll and Hyde.One summer night while sitting in our living room that was lit by two candles (electric shut off), a number of Hispanics were having a good time, reveling, while walking by our sidewalk window. Philip suddenly got up from his chair, put his face to the shade and growled with neck veins fit to bust…. “Tumadreessunapuerqa” which is Spanish for“Your mother’s a pig.”It was as if the revelry was snuffed with a candlesnuffer, sudden silence, when mutterings, whispers and shuffling in the bushes broke the silence. I was scared, felt like we were being surrounded.Suddenly a brick crashed through the window. Glass, shade, frame everywhere.
For some moments, Philip, Sally and I just sat there, believing we’d be overrun, when the revelry restarted with the yelping of heavily-accented “fuck you, mother fuckers” rising and fading down the block.
I beat on Philip for that.Ever since Eighty Deuce, I would beat Philip for this or that.Now I see that my brother was the easy constant… for my trip-wire boiling rage.
Sally would add, for the first of many, many times, prolifically to the mix: One day she told me she had ‘recurring’ breast cancer and would need radiation. I would take her to the hospital, drop her off for treatments. I was clueless, careless, really couldn’t give a shit-less.I’d come back in a couple of hours and Sally would have dark circles under her eyes and appear to be nauseous…with a throw-up here or there. Later I would learn it was all a great act, a wonderfully crafted ploy for attention and manipulation, by her own admission…. way after-the-fact. She became highly skilled with after-the- fact effusive 'self-cleansing'..."Oh Michael, I'm so, so sorry I just wanted some attention" I equally became highly skilled as the willfully gullible participant ad nauseum.
As I look back, this was the genesis of a new kind of insidious Insanity....for me.
From that same piece of luggage that I talked about earlier, the one that carried so much of all my mother had left when she was evicted from our apartment, losing everything. I found this scribbled note from Susanna to my brother Philip. I believe it was written during the time she was writing to my father, pleading for help (April 7th post, "Philip's soul begins to die..."). My brother had disappeared into the bowels of the lower east side, his drug use escalating as well as his homelessness. She was writing of her hope....still. She had cut out a magazine advert (of which the little boy in the advert reminded her of Philip) and stapled it to the note. Philip was eighteen.
Remember-While working two, sometimes three jobs, she would spend hours and months desperately trying to turn our little apartment into a home. This note, I think, reflects (in small part) her fallen dreams, fantasies and anguish.
"Philip--I saved this a long time ago to give to you. I wrote all over it and didn't get over my meaning--but (crudely) meant to imply (that) I wanted tile for our entrance hall but couldn't afford it. I know you hated those (yellow) slickers but you were seen in the traffic, and I meant it because tile was strong and you know I have always wanted everything strong and pure and good..."
"...for you and Michael too. It's terrible to try and explain a poetic and true feeling, & mess the whole thing up! I will love you always, no matter what--Michael too, but things there are pretty messed up & he's very nervous. Love Always, Mommy"
From April 1 post--
"1970- Remember the three cats; Santutso, Mariya and Poco?I always had a special fondness for Santutso especially after I spotted him perched on the toilet peeing proudly in its bowl. I guess male cats have been known to do this. What a sight!"
"Besides the porcelain bowl, Santutso had his way with his two sisters, by the time the Lamparski book (below) was published in 1970 Santutso had propagated (with Mariya and Poco) twenty some –odd watered down brothers and sisters/sons and daughters, nieces and nephews and cousins (of course). Along with Barney, mommy’s caboose…who was also very bitter by this time, Philip and I couldn’t go near him, except for his walk, although he didn’t get very much of that anyway… we all lived together in 3H, our one bedroom flat that mom had worked so hard to make a home. Two eternally overflowing cat-boxes, hardened and infiltrated dog/cat urine/feces decorating the kitty box perimeters on the once white and new shag carpet (Shagadelic?)Forget the perimeters, it was everywhere. My affection for cats remains to this day (in spite of) but I can never forget how a cuddly purr, and furry affection can lead to their insidious potential to propagate, infiltrate and overwhelm (much like humanity)."
By 1975 I had left Cheeba and formed the funk/disco group 'Oreo' out of Hartford, Connecticut.
But by now I had an increasing 'itch' to join my rising super-star friend Eric Gotthelf and my mother (*the enigma), the 'star of Phantom of the Opera'!!, who I was SURE would be rising once again in glorious Hollywood comeback in her familiar movie-star Los Angeles, the place of my birth and for me, the land that held mythical proportion since childhood. Both were now THERE, and I was in no-wheres-ville Hartford, Connecticut. Both would be catching their rising star to fame and fortune.....soon. I would look back, with twisted yearning, from a long time ago, that I had nannies and shiny things but it was sadly 'interrupted' by a lot of pain and 'bad luck.' I think I sensed if I could just get out there with mom and Eric....it would all coming flowing back. I knew I could at least depend on mom, 'cause she promised....she was "going back to work!" She was going to get back to work in 'Show Business!' And redeem her two loving sons.
*My ability to describe my mother as 'enigma,' has only come as of late. But 'enigma' clearly describes her own personal battles. She was sadly an enigma unto to herself....the whole of her lifetime. However, she deeply loved her two boys the only way she knew.
California Dreamin'.....I was soon on my way...
But unfortunately where ever I went there I was....
....and when you pick a partner (for your resurrection) with inherent personality disorder...
...your doomed.
Stay tuned for those (abridged) 'Crazy California Years.'
Cheeba
Oreo
1976- I was the lead singer in a funk/disco band named Oreo. A popular Rand B funk band in central Conn. Ala “Play that Funky Music White Boy”.One summer weekend we were playing a nightclub named “Plush bottoms” in Thomaston, Conn. 'Sally' was the cute waitress and I was the swaggering, omnipotent front man. It was a match made in nightclub hell.
That Saturday night after my last set, Sally and I decided that we’d go to MisquamicutBeach and spend the night on the sand. Misquamicut was a two and a halfhour drive on the Rhode Island coast. With a few drinks in our gut, her boyfriend in the backseat, we drove and drove north on Interstate 95 Sally’s yellow Chevrolet Vega to thesands of Misquamicut. We arrived around 4am, on margarita auto-pilot. I remember waking up in a hot blazing sun, hot sandy, sweaty blankets creasing my face, surrounded by people; throngs of beach goers, ambivalent to these three fully clothed, semi-comatose, sand-caked human figures in their midst.
It isn’t any wonder that I don’t remember very much of what went on the rest of that afternoon, except for the occasional fried clam and Coca-Cola, and the hangover-ed make believe attempt at enjoying this vacationed New England beach.
On the trip back that evening, with Sally's boyfriend in the backseat (asleep)...I fell asleep (at the wheel) at 65 miles an hour heading south on Interstate 95. The car was totaled, Sally's head was ripped open, I was bumped and bruised and the boyfriend was left unscathed. Little did I know that this event was our baptismal double act on the road to insanity, madness and ‘what the fuck?’....ad nauseum.
Sally (19 yo) and I knew each other six weeks when we moved in together in an apartment near Park Street in Hartford. The above picture is of my brother Philip (in the back seat of '69 Bonneville) when he came up to stay with us (to try his hand at his first rehab)two months before Sally and I were to leave for California in my newly purchased 1969 Pontiac Bonneville Brougham....my road chariot that would deliver me to my land of golden opportunity....the land of Vast Mythical Proportion.
1969 Pontiac Bonneville Brougham
Cheeba mates: Eric Gotthelf and Danny Sacharoff (the collie is 'General').
The fellow that penned this drawing of my first Connecticut band Cheeba (from a photograph) was 'Bob Bestard,' he was from Eighty Duece and about five years after he presented me with this work (1973) he too would never wake up from a drug overdose. I post this work in Bob Bestard's honor. A sweet, loving man.
During the first year that Cheeba was together we played often at a Brewster, NY 'club' called 'Todd's' (1972). An African-American bank teller who called himself 'Andrew Woolfolk' played a great sax and would often sit in with us.....we soon would ask him to join the group. He declined saying he was going to "head out to California to check out the scene." To our delight, 'Earth, Wind and Fire' snapped him up.
Cheeba part II
From left to right: Myron Way, Danny Sacharoff (who hung himself in 2003), me in the satin pants, my faithful Sugar Blues mate Howard Knight, my once best friend *Eric Gotthelf (who after leaving Cheeba would head out to California to tour with 'The Hughes Corporation' of 'Rock The Boat' the disco hit,' then start the band 'Wha-Koo,' with Steely Dan's original singer David Palmer), and Mike Leone on drums.
*Eric Gotthelf eventually would find a great job with Warner Bros......and was never the same. Much to my disappointment...and (again) sadness.
Below-'Wha-Koo' doing 'Fabulous Dancer.' Eric Gotthelf can be seen playing bass. This was 1978, the second year of my 'crazy California years.' I am wholly reticent in reliving them here. We shall see.
This one piece of luggage was from an expensive set that my mother and father purchased when we were in Europe. It was one of the very few 'tangible' items left from when we were a family. It contained many of my mother's belongings from when she was evicted from the apartment. Which included all of the home movies (8mm reels) from our South Pacific/European stay that she kept in that piece of luggage for many years. She treasured them. She saw them only once when a friend came over to our Eighty Duece apartment with his 8mm projector in the mid 1960s. Until the late 90's when I was able to transfer them to VHS/DVD. I then showed them to her when she was in a nursing home in Los Angeles. I video taped her amazement at seeing them as well as getting a much needed explanation/narration of where, when and who. Although I was there, I was very, very young. Ahh, the 'good old days.' The letter below was also found in this last vestige of our family.
Vickie's letter to Susanna::
(Please try to read this, it is telling)
Moved to New Milford, Conn. and started the band “Cheeba” with my ex-Sugar Blues mate Howard. Made good music. Got a job cleaning cars (a used car “reconditioner”), driver’s license, got a loan for a car, traded that for a van (The Cheeba Van), Even got married for a few months. When it came to ‘Eighty Deuce’ I was a success story. I’m sitting; Howard is on the right with the orange pants. 1974
