A Stranger in the Mirror

A Stranger in the Mirror Page 6

In the beginning, Toby Temple's war was a nightmare.

In the army, he was a nobody, a serial number in a uniform like millions of others, faceless, nameless, anonymous.

He was sent to basic training camp in Georgia and then shipped out to England, where his outfit was assigned to a camp in Sussex. Toby told the sergeant he wanted to see the commanding general. He got as far as a captain. The captain's name was Sam Winters. He was a dark-complexioned, intelligent-looking man in his early thirties. "What's your problem, soldier?"

"It's like this, Captain," Toby began. "I'm an entertainer. I'm in show business. That's what I did in civilian life."

Captain Winters smiled at his earnestness. "What exactly do you do?" he asked.

"A little of everything," Toby replied. "I do imitations and parodies and..." He saw the look in the captain's eyes and ended lamely. "Things like that."

"Where have you worked?"

Toby started to speak, then stopped. It was hopeless. The captain would only be impressed by places like New York and Hollywood. "No place you would have heard of," Toby replied. He knew now that he was wasting his time.

Captain Winters said, "It's not up to me, but I'll see what I can do."

"Sure," Toby said. "Thanks a lot, Captain." He gave a salute and exited.

Captain Sam Winters sat at his desk, thinking about Toby long after the boy had gone. Sam Winters had enlisted because he felt that this was a war that had to be fought and had to be won. At the same time he hated it for what it was doing to young kids like Toby Temple. But if Temple really had talent, it would come through sooner or later, for talent was like a frail flower growing under solid rock. In the end, nothing could stop it from bursting through and blooming. Sam Winters had given up a good job as a motion-picture producer in Hollywood to go into the army. He had produced several successful pictures for Pan-Pacific Studios and had seen dozens of young hopefuls like Toby Temple come and go. The least they deserved was a chance. Later that afternoon he spoke to Colonel Beech about Toby. "I think we should let Special Services audition him," Captain Winters said. "I have a feeling he might be good. God knows the boys are going to need all the entertainment they can get."

Colonel Beech stared up at Captain Winters and said coolly, "Right, Captain. Send me a memo on it." He watched as Captain Winters walked out the door. Colonel Beech was a professional soldier, a West Point man. The Colonel despised all civilians, and to him, Captain Winters was a civilian. Putting on a uniform and captain's bars did not make a man a soldier. When Colonel Beech received Captain Winter's memo on Toby Temple, he glanced at it, then savagely scribbled across it, "REQUEST DENIED," and initialed it.

He felt better.

What Toby missed most was the lack of an audience. He needed to work on his sense of timing, his skills. He would tell jokes and do imitations and routines at every opportunity. It did not matter whether his audience was two GIs doing guard duty with him in a lonely field, a busload of soldiers on their way into town or a dishwasher on KP. Toby had to make them laugh, win their applause.

Captain Sam Winters watched one day as Toby went through one of his routines in the recreation hall. Afterward, he went up to Toby and said, "I'm sorry your transfer didn't work out, Temple. I think you have talent. When the war's over, if you get to Hollywood, look me up." He grinned and added, "Assuming I still have a job out there."

The following week Toby's battalion was sent into combat.

In later years, when Toby recalled the war, what he remembered were not the battles. At Saint-Lô he had been a smash doing a mouth-sync act to a Bing Crosby record. At Aachen he had sneaked into the hospital and told jokes to the wounded for two hours before the nurses threw him out. He remembered with satisfaction that one GI had laughed so hard all his stitches had broken open. Metz was where he had bombed out, but Toby felt that that was only because the audience was jittery about the Nazi planes flying overhead.

The fighting that Toby did was incidental. He was cited for bravery in the capture of a German command post. Toby had really no idea what was going on. He had been playing John Wayne, and had gotten so carried away that it was all over before he had time to be frightened.

To Toby, it was the entertaining that was important. In Cherbourg he visited a whorehouse with a couple of friends, and while they were upstairs, Toby stayed in the parlor doing a routine for the madame and two of her girls. When he had finished, the madame sent him upstairs, on the house.

That was Toby's war. All in all, it was not a bad war, and time went by very quickly. When the war ended, it was 1945 and Toby was almost twenty-five years old. In appearance he had not aged one day. He had the same sweet face and beguiling blue eyes, and that hapless air of innocence about him.

Everyone was talking about going home. There was a bride waiting in Kansas City, a mother and father in Bayonne, a business in St. Louis. There was nothing waiting for Toby. Except Fame.

He decided to go to Hollywood. It was time that God made good on His promise.

"Do you know God? Have you seen the face of Jesus? I have seen Him, brothers and sisters, and I have heard His voice, but He speaks only to those who kneel before Him and confess their sins. God abhors the unrepentent. The bow of God's wrath is bent and the flaming arrow of His righteous anger is pointed at your wicked hearts, and at any moment He will let go and the arrow of His retribution shall smite your hearts! Look up to Him now, before it is too late!"

Josephine looked up toward the top of the tent, terrified, expecting to see a flaming arrow shooting at her. She clutched her mother's hand, but her mother was unaware of it. Her face was flushed and her eyes were bright with fervor.

"Praise Jesus!" the congregation roared.

The revival meetings were held in a huge tent, on the outskirts of Odessa, and Mrs. Czinski took Josephine to all of them. The preacher's pulpit was a wooden platform raised six feet above the ground. Immediately in front of the platform was the glory pen, where sinners were brought to repent and experience conversion. Beyond the pen were rows and rows of hard wooden benches, packed with chanting, fanatic seekers of salvation, awed by the threats of Hell and Damnation. It was terrifying for a six-year-old child. The evangelists were Fundamentalists, Holy Rollers and Pentecostalists and Methodists and Adventists, and they all breathed Hell-fire and Damnation.

"Get on your knees, O ye sinners, and tremble before the might of Jehovah! For your wicked ways have broken the heart of Jesus Christ, and for that ye shall bear the punishment of His Father's wrath! Look around at the faces of the young children here, conceived in lust and filled with sin."

And little Josephine would burn with shame, feeling everyone staring at her. When the bad headaches came, Josephine knew that they were a punishment from God. She prayed every night that they would go away, so she would know that God had forgiven her. She wished she knew what she had done that was so bad.

"And I'll sing Hallelujah, and you'll sing Hallelujah, and we'll all sing Hallelujah when we arrive at Home."

"Liquor is the blood of the Devil, and tobacco is his breath, and fornication is his pleasure. Are you guilty of trafficking with Satan? Then you shall burn eternally in Hell, damned forever, because Lucifer is coming to get you!"

And Josephine would tremble and look around wildly, fiercely clutching the wooden bench so that the Devil could not take her.

They sang, "I want to get to Heaven, my long-sought rest." But little Josephine misunderstood and sang, "I want to get to Heaven with my long short dress."

After the thundering sermons would come the Miracles. Josephine would watch in frightened fascination as a procession of crippled men and women limped and crawled and rode in wheelchairs to the glory pen, where the preacher laid hands on them and willed the powers of Heaven to heal them. They would throw away their canes and their crutches, and some of them would babble hysterically in strange tongues, and Josephine would cower in terror.

The revival meetings always ended with the plate being passed. "Jesus is watching you - and He hates a miser." And then it would be over. But the fear would stay with Josephine for a long time.

In 1946, the town of Odessa, Texas, had a dark brown taste. Long ago, when the Indians had lived there, it had been the taste of desert sand. Now it was the taste of oil.

There were two kinds of people in Odessa: Oil People and the Others. The Oil People did not look down on the Others - they simply felt sorry for them, for surely God meant everyone to have private planes and Cadillacs and swimming pools and to give champagne parties for a hundred people. That was why He had put oil in Texas.

Josephine Czinski did not know that she was one of the Others. At six, Josephine Czinski was a beautiful child, with shiny black hair and deep brown eyes and a lovely oval face.

Josephine's mother was a skilled seamstress who worked for the wealthy people in town, and she would take Josephine along as she fitted the Oil Ladies and turned bolts of fairy cloth into stunning evening gowns. The Oil People liked Josephine because she was a polite, friendly child, and they liked themselves for liking her. They felt it was democratic of them to allow a poor kid from the other side of town to associate with their children. Josephine was Polish, but she did not look Polish, and while she could never be a member of the Club, they were happy to give her visitors' privileges. Josephine was allowed to play with the Oil Children and share their bicycles and ponies and hundred-dollar dolls, so that she came to live a dual life. There was her life at home in the tiny clapboard cottage with battered furniture and outdoor plumbing and doors that sagged on their hinges. Then there was Josephine's life in beautiful colonial mansions on large country estates. If Josephine stayed overnight at Cissy Topping's or Lindy Ferguson's, she was given a large bedroom all to herself, with breakfast served by maids and butlers. Josephine loved to get up in the middle of the night when everyone was asleep and go down and stare at the beautiful things in the house, the lovely paintings and heavy monogrammed silver and antiques burnished by time and history. She would study them and caress them and tell herself that one day she would have such things, one day she would live in a grand house and be surrounded by beauty.

But in both of Josephine's worlds, she felt lonely. She was afraid to talk to her mother about her headaches and her fear of God because her mother had become a brooding fanatic, obsessed with God's punishment, welcoming it. Josephine did not want to discuss her fears with the Oil Children because they expected her to be bright and gay, as they were. And so, Josephine was forced to keep her terrors to herself.

On Josephine's seventh birthday, Brubaker's Department Store announced a photographic contest for the Most Beautiful Child in Odessa. The entry picture had to be taken in the photograph department of the store. The prize was a gold cup inscribed with the name of the winner. The cup was placed in the department-store window, and Josephine walked by the window every day to stare at it. She wanted it more than she had ever wanted anything in her life. Josephine's mother would not let her enter the contest - "Vanity is the devil's mirror," she said - but one of the Oil Women who liked Josephine paid for her picture. From that moment on, Josephine knew that the gold cup was hers. She could visualize it sitting on her dresser. She would polish it carefully every day. When Josephine found out that she was in the finals, she was too excited to go to school. She stayed in bed all day with an upset stomach, her happiness too much for her to bear. This would be the first time that she had owned anything beautiful.

The following day Josephine learned that the contest had been won by Tina Hudson, one of the Oil Children. Tina was not nearly as beautiful as Josephine, but Tina's father happened to be on the board of directors of the chain that owned Brubaker's Department Store.

When Josephine heard the news, she developed a headache that made her want to scream with pain. She was afraid for God to know how much that beautiful gold cup meant to her, but He must have known because her headaches continued. At night she would cry into her pillow, so that her mother could not hear her.

A few days after the contest ended, Josephine was invited to Tina's home for a weekend. The gold cup was sitting in Tina's room on a mantle. Josephine stared at it for a long time.

When Josephine returned home, the cup was hidden in her overnight case. It was still there when Tina's mother came by for it and took it back.

Josephine's mother gave her a hard whipping with a switch made from a long, green twig. But Josephine was not angry with her mother.

The few minutes Josephine had held the beautiful gold cup in her hands had been worth all the pain.