Points of Articulation
Points of Articulation
1964
Kennedy’s assassination throws the country into a state of grief and uncertainty. A collective innocence has been shattered. It isn’t just a turbulent time for the nation; the start of 1964 is equally challenging for Ruth. Even though Mattel’s initial public offering exceeded everyone’s expectations, it was followed by an upset. After years of back-and-forth, the lawsuit with Louis Marx and Mattel’s countersuit are both dismissed. The judge has awarded no damages, and both sides must cover their own legal fees. Ruth wants to appeal, but according to the lawyers, they can’t reintroduce the suit. It’s over and done with. Elliot tells her she should be relieved, that it could have gone the other way. At least now Barbie is out from under the cloud of Bild Lilli and no one is the wiser.
But Ruth doesn’t even have time to appreciate that, because she’s recently discovered another lump in her breast. After the biopsy proves benign, Elliot pleads with her to quit smoking. She’s tried before. Most efforts only last a matter of days, sometimes only hours. Once she did manage to go three and a half weeks without a cigarette, but when she stepped on the scale and saw that she’d gained five pounds, she went back to smoking. This time, though, after her latest health scare, her doctor recommended a hypnotist who’s had success with other smokers.
So now Ruth sits in the waiting room at Dr.Mandry’s office, hypnotist to the stars, claiming such clients as Montgomery Clift and Kim Novak. When the nurse slides back the glass window to say that the doctor is running behind schedule, Ruth doesn’t mind a bit. She’s not quite ready to quit smoking. What is she going to do with her gold cigarette case, the one with her initials engraved on top? Not to mention the matching lighter. Just thinking of all she’s being asked to give up makes her anxious, makes her want a cigarette.
She’s brought some work with her, hoping it will take her mind off things. She starts by checking the Wall Street Journal to see how Mattel’s stock is doing. Yesterday’s close was at an all-time high of $36.47. She and Elliot always said if it ever hit $40 a share, they’d buy his-and-hers Rolls-Royces. It seemed absurd at the time, but now it’s a real possibility. Hopefully Skipper’s upcoming launch will give their stock another boost and send them car shopping.
Ruth sets her newspaper aside and begins reviewing the weekly W Report. This is a comprehensive list of each toy Mattel sells—capturing the production status, shipping and sales data dating back to the product’s launch. To her this is the most important document to cross her desk. She’s pleased to see that the new Midge doll is performing so well. As she should have expected, after Midge came out last year, the mail flooded in: Poor Midge, she’s all alone. A third wheel… So they created a boyfriend for Midge: the Allan doll, purposely spelled with an a to somewhat pacify Barbara’s objections.
“Mother, can you please just leave my family out of this,” she said when Ruth first told her.
Barbara was furious, but Allen was flattered. He loved the idea and felt like for the first time he was an accepted member of the Handler clan.
And the Handler extended family is growing in all directions. Not only is Barbara pregnant again, but Ken’s wife is also expecting. After this last cancer scare, Ruth just wants to live long enough to watch her grandchildren grow up and is determined to quit smoking.
Finally, Ruth’s called into the doctor’s office. She’s trying to remain open-minded and hopeful about this process. There’s a comfortable recliner, dim lighting, lots of breathing, lots of counting backward, lots of closing her eyes, picturing black smoke with each imaginary puff she takes. The doctor’s voice is flat, monotone and frankly monotonous. He could put her to sleep faster than he could hypnotize her. Still she tries, breathing, counting, picturing…This goes on for the better part of forty minutes and all Ruth can think about is work and how soon she can get the hell out of here and have her next cigarette.
—
“Hey, come here.” Jack pulls Stevie into his office just as she’s getting ready to leave for the day. “I want to show you something. Look at this—” He holds out a twelve-inch plastic male doll with bulky shoulders, arms, and legs, dressed in army fatigues.
“Has Ken been working out? Or did he get drafted?”
“That’s not Ken. That, my dear, is a prototype of G.I. Joe— America’s Movable Fighting Man. ”
Stevie sets her pocketbook on his desk and drapes her raincoat over his chair. Picking up G.I. Joe, she fiddles with his arms and legs.
“Would you look at the way he’s constructed?” Jack says excitedly. “We’re talking nineteen points of articulation. Everything on this guy moves. The head, the neck—” Jack takes G.I. Joe from Stevie to demonstrate, twisting limbs and joints. “Look at the shoulders, the biceps—even the ankles. Un-fucking-believable. We need to do something like this for Barbie.”
She arches an eyebrow. “You want to give Barbie biceps?”
“I want her to move. To come alive like this.”
“Where did he even come from?”
“Hasbro.”
“Really? How’d you get your hands on their prototype?”
“Oh, I have my sources.”
“I’m afraid to ask what that means.”
He laughs, rippling his eyebrows suggestively.
“Be careful. Remember, you’re sleeping with the enemy.”
“Oh, I’d hardly call her the enemy.” Jack glances again at G.I. Joe. Reaching for his pocket recorder, he pushes the button and says: “More points of articulation needed for Barbie. Per Hasbro’s fighting man.” He clicks off the tape recorder.
“Well,” she says, “just don’t go giving away any trade secrets during pillow talk.”
“Never.” He smiles, realizing for the first time that she’s got her coat and pocketbook with her, that she was on her way out. “Where are you rushing off to?” he asks.
“The Ferus,” she says, slipping into her raincoat and smoothing down her collar. “There’s a John Altoon exhibit opening tonight.”
“Sounds fun,” he says, feeling a prickle of residual jealousy surfacing. It just happens from time to time of its own accord, something he can’t control any more than he can control the weather. “So,” he says as casually as he can make it sound, “who ya going with?”
“No one.”
“No one? You’re going alone? By yourself?” He’s both relieved and impressed. He could never do something like that, take himself to a museum or an art gallery. Never in a million years.
—
The Ferus Gallery is crowded, and Stevie’s as fascinated by the people as she is the artwork. There are lots of shaggy-haired men, and women with exotic eye makeup and jewelry, clustered together in circles that seem to be by invite only. It’s easy to spot the artists in the room, the ones who possess an effortless cool. They’re highly stylized with expensive shoes, the right eyewear, cigarette in one hand, drink in the other. Then there are the couples like the pair across the way who are not entirely comfortable with each other or with the room. Stevie assumes this is their first—and probably their last—date, whereas another couple standing in the back are just as enraptured with each other as they are the paintings. The woman stands in front of the man, leaning into his chest as he wraps his arms about her waist, his chin propped on her shoulder. Couples like that send a deep ache to Stevie’s heart. They’re the ones who make her want to be in love. In real love, and with the right person—if such a person even exists.
She shifts her attention back to the art. She’s a novice and doesn’t really know exactly what she’s looking at. If asked, she’d say Altoon’s work is kinetic, crackling with color and extreme brushstrokes. They might laugh, consider her a fraud, but she’s not pretending to be part of the West Coast art scene. Far as she can tell, she’s the only woman there by herself. She doesn’t care. No one’s paying attention to her anyway, and she didn’t want to deprive herself of an abstract expressionist opening just because she’s not part of the in crowd and not part of a couple, either.