Spin Cycle: The Erstwhile Friend

I sometimes like to play the "It's a Wonderful Life" game. You know what I mean? I think of people in my life who have, through some, perhaps trivial, influence or suggestion, shifted my direction in a life-altering way. My life would have been drastically different without the existence of these people. I think of a particular casting director, who I haven't spoken to in many years now, who brought me to LA for my first TV job and introduced me to the man who would become my first manager, who in turn sent me to the woman who would become my acting teacher, who in turn introduced me to Jimmy.

And one person to whom I can trace back many of my formative influences, was a friend named Mary.

I often mention my Texas girlfriends - Kaysie and Sharon. And sometimes I'll tell a story about Flavia and Sondee. All these women were important parts of my childhood, and are still major players in my life.

But Mary is someone who I lost track of long ago. I haven't spoken to her in at least 25 years, and we haven't been close in 30. But back during my extremely formative junior high school years, Mary and I were practically inseparable, and a HUGE number of my formative memories include her. And many of the influences weren't exactly...wholesome.

Mary was nice and funny and smart and easy-going, and we got along tremendously. She was also something of a free-spirit and a risk taker. And I was just at an age when those attributes were extremely attractive.

Mary's family lived in a big house up in the hills above Austin. I can't begin to imagine how many hours I spent up in Mary's room listening to music and painting each others fingernails a deep shade burgundy.

Elton John was one of our passions. I remember listening to Side 1 of "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy" ("Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy", "Tower of Babel", "Bitter Fingers", "Tell Me When the Whistle Blows" and "Someone Saved My Life Tonight") and Side 1 of "Madman Across the Water" ("Tiny Dancer", "Levon", "Razor Face" and "Madman Across the Water") ad infinitum, until we both had every lyric and nuance memorized. I also remember a lot of Bad Company, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Z.Z. Top, Barry Manilow, Chicago and Carole King's "Tapestry", which I realize is an eclectic list.

We would listen wistfully, with all of our little 13-year old hormones raging, and talk of boys and clothes and other important stuff.

While neither of Mary's parents smoked, they used to keep a carton of Carlton cigarettes in the back of the liquor cabinet for their guests.

They never seemed to notice that Mary and I would steal packs, sneak under their deck, and smoke until we vomited. Literally. It was my first exposure to what would eventually become a 15 year addiction (actually, that would make an excellent story - hmm...Spin Cycle: Bad Habits?). We'd also steal them and take them to the movies, you could smoke in theaters back then. Mary's mother would drop us off, and after smoking throughout the movie, we'd go into the theater bathroom and drown ourselves with Charlie or Ciara colognes, so her mom wouldn't smell the cigarettes on us. Because we all know how well that works.

Mary was the youngest of 4 children, and the presence of these older siblings definitely influenced little only-child me. Kaysie also had 3 older and extremely influential siblings, but they were all role-models in a super-smart-high-achievement-brainiac kind of way. Mary's siblings? They were a ROWDY bunch, and probably NOT the role-models my parents would have chosen for me!

Mary's father was the Travis County Sheriff for most of the '70s. And keeping with the old adage about preacher's kids, the Sheriff's kids were WILD. Constantly in trouble.

Mary's older sister got knocked up when Mary and I were about 14, and I was asked to be the punch-server at her shotgun wedding. It was pretty common in Texas in those days that your very best friends would be your bridesmaids, and your B-list friends would be the punch-servers. I got to wear a floor-length Qiana dress, and I remember thinking it was a pretty big deal. Her sister moved away soon after the wedding, and had a little blonde-haired baby boy, and I don't remember much about her after that. I can't imagine that her quickie marriage proved lasting.

I don't remember Mary's oldest brother much at all, but her other brother, Raymond, will live forever in my memory - a long, golden-haired, tall, tanned, gorgeous hippie god! Dear Lord, did I have a crush on him!

Though he was at least 4 years older than us, Raymond sometimes let us hang out with him. I can't imagine why. He let us sit with him and watch the very first episode of a brand new tv show called "Saturday Night Live". He even took us to our first rock concert - War. I can't fathom why my parents allowed me to do such a thing. I guess the dad's-the-sheriff thing blinded them to the true nature of what was going on with their family. I remember the War concert clearly - the Municipal Auditorium was filled with hundreds of crazed kids, a cloud of pot smoke hovering over our heads. Definitely the first time I smelled pot. And while I don't remember smoking any, I probably got slightly stoned just from breathing the air in the place.

Raymond's room was a mysterious and magnetic place. He had piles of dirty magazines, which Mary and I would sneak in and look at when he wasn't around. We'd flip through copies of Playboy, Penthouse and the raunchy Hustler, gaping at the never-imagined, and reading Penthouse Forum letters aloud to each other.

I remember one particular time when Raymond got in trouble with their dad. The sheriff went out to mow the lawn one day, and discovered that the entire area of their backyard below Raymond's bedroom window had grown into a flourishing marijuana garden. Apparently, Raymond would clean his pot in his room, and throw the seeds and stems out the window. Where they grew and thrived. I believe the sheriff managed to mow them down before a major county scandal erupted.

Probably the most influential member of their family was the Sheriff himself. He was a wry, funny man, who became something of a noted local "character". And believe me, Austin is filled with some characters. He was notoriously "hippie-loving". There was a well-known story from back in the '70s, that he was at the famous Soap Creek Saloon one night, and when a hippie tried to hand him a joint, he answered "No thanks, I'm enjoying wine this evening". He raised eyebrows by allowing "Hippie Hollow", a nude swimming park, and one of Austin's weirder landmarks, to go unchecked for many years. He said he figured there were a lot of more important things to spend the county's law enforcement budget on than making a bunch of kids put on their clothes. Willie Nelson even gave him a cameo in the movie "Honeysuckle Rose". Now in his 80s, he was recently fined for operating his own pirate radio station!

One of the most shocking memories of my childhood was a time when the Sheriff took Mary and I along with him to work. Sometimes, when I remember the story, I wonder if it really happened, because I so completely can't imagine why he would have exposed two young girls to such a thing. But I know it was real, because images from it are so thoroughly burned into my brain, and the sensorial memories are powerful.

The Sheriff must have gotten the call while we were with him in his truck. That's all I can figure. We drove to a house just outside of Austin. The east side - the bad side. A woman had been murdered. Suspected domestic violence. It was a tiny, filthy house - a place where poor folk lived. A place like nothing I had ever seen in my very sheltered life. The place stank. Horribly. And there in the middle of the living room floor, the dank carpet was stained with a huge puddle of sticky blood. And stuck in the blood were long, matted, brown hairs.

I remember walking from room to room while the Sheriff and his deputies tried to recreate the chain of events. A large blood splatter covered a wall in the dirty kitchen. It was there that they figured the first shot had occurred. They thought that then she must have run into the living room, where she was shot again, collapsed and died.

But it was the bedroom that I remember most vividly. In the corner of the bedroom was a large cage. A cage where, until it had been removed just before we'd arrived, the people had kept...a monkey. It was this cage from which the majority of the stench was emanating. The bottom of it was covered with monkey feces, urine and rotten food.

The idea of these...people, and this...monkey, caused nightmares for me for years.

I never told my parents that the Sheriff had taken me to such a place.

Over the years, Mary and I grew apart. I evolved into a choir geek/student counsel secretary/National Merit Scholar/good girl, and Mary evolved into that girl who hung out in the smoking area, and dated older boys. Never a bad girl, just more...mature. Never joined clubs. Apathetic about school. We stayed friendly, but not friends.

A few years ago, Kaysie ran into Mary. If I remember the story right (which I'm sure I don't, because I'm terrible that way - if Kaysie reads this, maybe she'll correct me!), Kaysie ran into her somewhere, and Mary invited her back to her house. Mary was married and had a kid, and was living in a really cool home outside of Austin. Kaysie said she seemed happy, and was leading a nice life. She asked after me.

I keep looking for her on Facebook, but Mary, the rebel, seems to have chosen yet again not to be a joiner. But I'd love to find her, and tell her how much I remember and cherish about our years as friends. And how profoundly my experiences with her and her family broadened and shook up my oh-so-carefully sheltered life.

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The Spin Cycle this week is a "free spin", which means were were all allowed to choose our own topics to ramble on about. And man, have I rambled! Please visit Sprite's Keeper, and see what the other spinners have chosen as their topics.

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I know you're all getting sick of this, but if I could just stay in the Top 25, I'd be happy. Remember you can vote EVERY DAY. Thanks!

Comments

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I look back at some of my less than up standing friends from high school and wonder why my mom let me hang out with them. I think there was an element of I would be the good influence. Yeah, not so much. I do have fond memories though.
I hope you can connect with Mary again.

Posted by: VandyJ | 08/04/2011 at 05:45 AM

What you say about PKs is true, they were always the worst kids but the ones that your parents thought were perfect and safe. Little did mine know they we were partying it up with them.

Posted by: Michele | 08/04/2011 at 06:05 AM