Sid
I am sitting in my car clutching my clutch.
I scan the parking lot of the Palm Springs library. My car is parked at the curb, right in front of the doors. A security
camera stands guard above the entrance. It is a bright, sunny Wednesday for Drag Queen Reading Hour, and yet I see only darkness.
I look to the left, then right, before scanning my mirrors. Patrons walk by, children happily skipping, and I slump further
into the driver’s seat.
I nervously rub the brooch I wear at the top of my blouse. It was my grandmother’s, and I used to sneak it out of her jewelry
box and admire it as a boy, mesmerized by its beauty. It looks like a cameo, but it’s actually a Star of David embedded into
ivory. My grandmother wore it as a necklace, but I removed the chain, saved the pendant and refashioned it for Sophia Petrillo.
And myself.
I would rub it for good luck and protection when I first started performing. Out of all the boys, I am the least theatrical.
I mean, Teddy is all drama, Dorothy except with an Adam’s apple. Ron is a creative, and Barry is an actor. I fell into place
like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle solely because of my age and the fact I look a little bit like Sophia. All I had to
do was learn to say, “Picture it! Sicily . . .”
“You’ve lied your whole life,” Teddy teased me before our first performance years ago. “This is all scripted. It should be so much easier for you.”
When I rubbed the brooch the first time before I went on stage, I could feel my grandmother beside me.
As I sit there, I see in the mirror an older woman approaching with two children. I slouch further, until my body is practically
underneath the wheel.
I watch her pass.
Is that her?
My heart is racing.
Is she back?
My memory of the incident is blurry at best. I didn’t realize how blurry until the police called for a statement.
Another woman passes, and I jump.
Is that her?
I grab my clutch even tighter. I have cleaned and shined it a hundred times to ensure her spit has been removed, but I cannot
erase the memory.
“Screw this!” I finally say.
I start the car and begin to put it into Reverse when I hear a knock on the window. I scream bloody murder.
Esther Himmelbaum and Talia Goldfarb are standing at the passenger window. Only their heads are visible.
I roll down the window.
“What the hell are you doing?” Esther says.
“I’m leaving.”
“No, you’re not,” she says, tugging on the door handle. “Open the door!”
I hit Unlock, and Esther and Talia slowly climb inside. They pack their tiny tuchuses against one another in the passenger
seat.
“What kind of car is this?” Talia asks, rubbing the leather interior. “Very nice. Is it new?”
“It’s a Tesla.”
“Ack!” Talia yelps. “That man is meshuga!”
“May all his teeth fall out except one,” Esther says, cursing Elon Musk, “so he can have a toothache.”
Talia cackles.
“Why are you in my car?” I ask.
“We came here to support you,” Esther says. “We love you.”
I had told Esther what happened. She told Talia. I’m surprised CNN doesn’t know yet. Or Santa Claus. Or my friends. I don’t
want anyone to know. Which is why I haven’t responded to any of Leo’s messages yet about being featured on his segment.
“We knew you’d be scared,” Esther continues. “We’re going to walk you inside.”
“My bodyguards are two Jewish women in their late eighties?”
“No one will fuck with us!” Talia adds.
I shake my head. “I can’t.”
“You can,” Talia says. “And you will.”
“You have to do this, Sid, not just for you but for everyone who is hated every single day in this country simply for honoring
who they are,” Esther says. “Look at what our people have endured lately.”
“I’m not going to change anything,” I say.
Esther puts her hand on my arm.
“Do you remember the story you told me at our first Passover together?”
I stare at the library entrance, racking my brain to remember.
Esther prompts me. “You told me your favorite part of Passover as a child was . . . ?”
“The afikomen.” I finish her thought, remembering. “It was.”
“Why was that, Sid?”
“It was fun.” I shrug. “It was one of the final rituals, and it gave us kids something to look forward to.”
“But there is more than that, too, right?”
I manage to look my friend in the eye.
“Seder revolves around a stack of three matzos, correct?” she asks.
I nod.
“We take out the middle one and break it in half,” Esther recounts, “but, of course, they never break evenly, so we put the smaller piece back into the stack and wrap the larger piece in a napkin and hide it for the children. When they find it, they deliver it to the table at the end of Seder. This middle matzo represents the human situation: broken and small. This is the bread of affliction, impoverishment and enslavement. Seder begins with the acknowledgment that—like the Israelites in Egypt—our need for redemption is extraordinary, and that the world we live in is broken, too, filled with suffering, injustice and despair. The first bite of the broken matzo is internalizing this truth. We place the salty tears of the enslaved on our tongues. We understand we are in a place of brokenness and about to set out on a journey.”
Esther grips my arm even harder as a group of kids head into the library.
“But who delivers this message to us, Sid?” she asks.
“The children.”
My voice breaks.
“Yes!” she exclaims. “And that is the secret of the afikomen ritual. Who do we trust to bring us this? The children. The remaining
piece, the point of all of this—our future, our redemption—is in the hands of the next generation. We must trust them, again
and again, to deliver it.”
I place my head on the wheel, and my eyes fill with tears.
“Isn’t that why you’re here, Sid?” Talia asks. “Why you’ve been reading to kids for years? Because you trust that the next
generation will be different, that our community, the gay community, the world will be different because of them?”
“Yes.”
“Then take our hands,” Esther says, “and let us lead you to the table where you can trust that maybe, just maybe, the next
generation will not experience what we have endured, because they will no longer allow it.”
Talia opens the car door.
We slide out.
Talia and Esther flank me, grabbing my hands, and we walk into the library as one, me in the middle—broken, shattered—but
our united shadow bigger, stronger together.
“Thank you for agreeing to do the interview, Sid.”
“I’m nervous.”
“We can sit here as long as you like, okay?”
Leo and I are seated in the midst of a thick grove of palm trees in the Downtown Park, staring up and directly into Marilyn
Monroe’s panties.
Fittingly, the untrimmed Washingtonia fan palms surrounding us look as if they are wearing hula skirts.
The park is new to downtown Palm Springs and sits across from the Palm Springs Art Museum. It has already been embraced by
locals. The controversial sculpture entitled Forever Marilyn, however, has been met with significant skepticism.
Towering over the park, the twenty-six-foot-tall Forever Marilyn captures the famed image from Billy Wilder’s 1955 film The Seven Year Itch, the actress’s skirt blowing skyward as she stands over a subway grate, baring her backside.
And I am old Marilyn, still dressed as Sophia—per Leo’s request—following my Reading Hour at the library.
“Tell me about her,” Leo finally says, breaking the silence.
I know it’s a way to get me to start talking ahead of the interview as a cameraman stands before us, adjusting his lens and
checking light levels.
“The sculpture has been a source of great controversy in Palm Springs over the years,” I say to Leo, as tourists of all ages
flock to have their photos taken underneath Marilyn. “The sculpture has been moved around to various locations all over town.
Many prominent local citizens have tried to sue to have the sculpture moved from its current location.”
“She seems so popular, though,” he says.
“She is,” I say, as each tourist does the same thing: They laugh and hold a finger up to point at her undercarriage.
“What’s the issue?” he asks.
“Some worry that museum visitors, particularly schoolchildren, are being flashed on their way to and from the museum,” I say.
Leo chuckles, but my rote explanation stops me cold. “Others feel the sculpture of her captured in this moment is misogyny
disguised as nostalgia. If you remember, Joe DiMaggio allegedly beat up Marilyn after she posed for this photo shoot.”
Leo stares at the sculpture as the sounds of water cascading down a brutalist concrete fountain drown out the traffic and
voices of visitors just a block away.
“I understand all of that, and that is horrific, but isn’t the point of art to make people think? Perhaps the sculptor’s mission
was not simply to recreate this moment in time but to create a piece that forces us to ask ourselves to consider how women
have been viewed throughout history and still are today?” Leo nods toward the tourists. “Is it bad art simply because it appeals
to the masses?”
For a moment, I am not lost in Leo’s eyes or his deep dimple, but in his sensitivity and intellect. There is nothing sexier
than a brain.
“Are you Sophia from The Golden Girls?” a young woman says as she approaches. “Can we get our picture with you?”
A group of women wearing sashes reading Girls Weekend! gather around. Leo is game and takes the photo.
“We loved that show!” they yell as they take off toward Marilyn.
“Then you should go see The Golden Gays,” Leo says. “He and his friends do a tribute show to them. It’s amazing.”
“We will!” they yell back.
I watch the tourists and ponder Leo’s questions.
“Speaking of controversy . . .” Leo says gingerly as if reading my mind. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” I say.
He nods at the cameraman standing beside us.
“Tell me about what happened at the library,” he asks.
I shut my eyes and take a deep breath. I tell my story.
“How did that make you feel?” he asks when I finish.
“Violated. Scared. Worthless. As if I had done something wrong.” I pause. “As if I were wrong.”
My voice breaks.
“Do you need to stop?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Go on.”
“If something like this can happen in Palm Springs, it can happen anywhere. And it is happening right now. This very instant.
Across the world. Someone, somewhere is experiencing a hate crime. Being victimized for simply being different.” I speak in
halting sentences. “I am eighty-one years old. I have experienced anti-Semitism, job discrimination based on my sexual orientation.
I have been an outcast from my family. I am often an outcast in my own community simply for being old.”
I look into the blue sky and continue.
“Eight decades of life, and we are still fighting the same hate in this world. When will this stop? How does it stop? One
voice at a time. That’s why—even though I am scared—I don’t want to remain silent about what happened. Children will be the
change. They will be, I hope, what saves us from one another. I am reading the same stories to kids in this community that
I read to my own children in Chicago decades ago. I’m just doing it in a dress as Sophia Petrillo because kids connect with
her. Kids love costumed characters, be it me or those at Disneyland. They let down their guards. We should be focusing on
the fact that kids are going to the library and reading. We should be thankful they do not judge at this age. I have to believe
the next generation will simply see that we have more in common with the person standing before us than what divides us.”
I look at Leo. A soft smile crosses my lips. He nods at me to keep going.
“I doubt I’ll be around to see this change, but if standing up for myself right now allows someone watching this to value their identity and stand up for themselves, or a child, mother or grandmother sees this and has a little more compassion, then this will all have been worth it.”
Leo turns to the cameraman.
“We good?” he asks him.
“All good.”
“Is that it?” I ask.
“Yep,” Leo says. “It should air in a few weeks. The station wants to do a lot of promo in advance of this first segment.”
“Very exciting.”
Leo stands.
“We will interview your friends at your home in a few days, if that’s okay?”
I nod.
I just need to tell them about all of this first.
“And right now, we need to get some B-roll to go along with the footage we got at the library,” Leo says.
“B-roll?”
“Just some footage of us walking and talking, no sound, so that we can use it during the introduction and for promotion. Do
you mind walking around the park with me for a moment?”
“Not at all.”
We stroll through the grove of palms.
“So beautiful,” Leo says.
“It is, isn’t it?” I say. “Reminds you of what Palm Springs was before it became such a popular tourist destination. Palm
trees, sunshine, blue sky and mountains. That’s it.”
Leo places his hand tenderly on my lower back.
“No,” he says. “I mean you.”
My knees lock, and I stumble. Leo catches me.
“I don’t understand,” I say, turning to him.
“You,” he says. “You’re beautiful.”
The world around me falls away, one piece at a time—the palms, the mountains, Marilyn, the cameraman—until it is only me and Leo, alone in the universe.
“I’m an old man dressed as an old woman,” I say, confused. “What could you possibly find beautiful about me?”
“Everything.”
Am I being mocked?
“Why are you doing this to me?” I ask. “It’s cruel.”
Leo gently turns my body until I am facing him.
“Oh, Sid,” he says. “I want our community to see you as I do. I want you to see you as I do. Your beautiful soul.” Leo glances back at the cameraman, who is standing a few feet away, unable to hear
our conversation. “I’ve never done this before during an interview. It’s quite unprofessional. I just think you are a special
man. That’s why I’ve been seeking you out.”
“But you’re . . . perfect.”
“There is no such thing as perfect,” he says. “We’re all the same, broken people with broken parts we try to piece back together
into a beautiful mosaic.”
My body begins to shake out of nervousness, panic and excitement.
“Would you like to go out with me?” he asks.
“Why?”
“Those are things you don’t utter out loud.” He laughs. “Just say yes.”
It takes every ounce of strength I have to put aside the feeling I will end up being crushed by this man and to form the word.
“Yes.”