Ron
A roadrunner inspects the patio outside my bedroom.
Meep meep!
Most people don’t know that many famed cartoon characters were inspired by California’s landscape. Walt Disney lived in Palm
Springs, in a rustic compound of homes known as Smoketree Ranch, and the desert setting inspired some of his most beloved
characters. Looney Toons animator Chuck Jones was the mastermind behind Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, and the desert
scenery in his early cartoons was stunningly realistic.
In person, the fast-running bird is quite handsome—lithe, brownish-black and white-streaked, shaped like a jet fighter—with
a thick plume of feathers on the crown of its head. The plume makes the bird appear as if it is sporting a crest when the
feathers are raised, a look that is equally regal and comical.
This particular roadrunner is a frequent visitor to Zsa Zsa. I call it Dotty Perkins, after my childhood protector, although
I’m not sure if this particular roadrunner is a male or female as both are nearly identical. But this one is so fascinated
by watching me work a wig and do my own hair that I knew it had to be Dotty reincarnated.
Right now, Dotty peers inside as I tease, brush and spray, the crest high on its head as if its eponym had just finished back-combing the hell out of its feathers.
“Higher the hair, the closer to God,” I swear I can hear the roadrunner say to me in the real Dotty’s voice. “And most of
us need all the help—and height—we can get.”
I look at Teddy and Trudy. I am now hearing voices because they have been engaged in a silent standoff ever since we returned
home from the theater. I forced the two into my bedroom to talk.
However, the only noise I’ve heard in the last twenty minutes has been the hiss of a hairspray can and a short, sharp bark
from the roadrunner.
Trudy is wearing a vintage, oversized tunic color-blocked in angled panels of pink and yellow that makes her look significantly
thinner. It finally hits me that it’s from Teddy’s store, and I wonder who gifted it to her to wear tonight. I admire the
guts it must have taken for Trudy to wear something like this in public.
The silence buzzes. I could cut the tension with a pair of salon scissors.
Trudy lifts her cell with a shaking hand and aims it at the roadrunner.
“I’ve never seen one in real life,” she whispers, as though it might hear her. “A roadrunner was the one thing I was most
excited to see in the desert.”
I was not expecting her to speak, and I jump at the sound of her voice, a comb sticking in the back of Rose’s wig.
“Gee, thanks,” Teddy replies.
I look up as Trudy’s face falls.
“That’s not what I meant, Teddy.”
She snaps a photo.
“Do you remember when we used to watch cartoons on Saturday morning?” Trudy continues, still staring at the roadrunner. “While
Mom and Dad slept in?”
“You mean, slept it off,” Teddy interrupts.
“We’d grab our cereal—Quisp for you and Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berries for me—and we’d watch cartoons all morning?”
“Yeah. We’ve already shared this touching family story, Trudy.”
Trudy closes her eyes, and a whisper of a smile appears on her face. She talks as if she is in a trance.
“We’d watch Land of the Lost, H.R. Pufnstuf, Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!,” she continues. “But our favorite was The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show. You loved Bugs Bunny the most.”
I swear I can see a tiny smile trace its way across Teddy’s face.
“The coyote was always trying to outwit the roadrunner, but it was too smart to get caught,” Trudy says. “Remember, Teddy?”
“I do,” he says. “Ironically, everybody thinks the roadrunner is the innocent one,” Teddy continues, watching it as it watches
us. “But they’re not like the cartoon character, Trudy, just like life is not a sitcom. Roadrunners are omnivores. They eat
and kill just about anything that crosses their paths. Did you know they can kill a rattlesnake? If a pair of roadrunners
wants to eat a rattlesnake, they just team up and peck its head until it dies. I’ve seen it happen. It’s horrifying to watch.
They will torture anything—birds, frogs, reptiles—just pecking and pecking until it gives up.”
Teddy looks at his sister.
“Sound familiar?” he asks.
Trudy’s eyes fill with tears.
“Teddy, please!”
I don’t mean to say this with so much force, but my words emerge as an angry shout. The comb shakes in my hand.
“Spare me, Ron,” Teddy says with so much contempt I can almost feel the venom. “You’re the one who caused all of this with
your pathetic codependence and unshakeable belief in a God that has never believed in you. You’ve been alone your whole life
and made do with an invisible friend to get you through.”
“Teddy, stop it,” Trudy now says. “Ron is just trying to help.”
“I’ll go,” I say, “so you two can talk. My presence isn’t helping matters.”
“No, stay,” Trudy says, reaching for me when I stand. “Please.”
“Jesus,” Teddy exclaims, now standing. “You two deserve each other. Evil twins pretending to be angels.”
“I’m evil?” I ask, grabbing Teddy by the arm. “We were living together, and you never said a word about your cancer for how
many months now? You were just expecting us to put you in hospice one day, no questions asked? That’s a friendship? That’s
angelic?”
“It’s not that hard.” Teddy shrugs. “You get a bed and some morphine and count the days until it’s over.”
“But I love you, Teddy,” I say, my voice cracking. “You are my brother and my best friend.”
“Well, I’ve reconsidered death thanks to Ava,” Teddy says. “So you’ll still get a chance to change my catheter. Lucky us.”
Teddy looks at Trudy. He crosses his arms.
“So, what’s the big secret?” he asks his sister. “Oh, let me guess. You’ve decided to give the money from the house to Ron.
Or, was that all just a ruse, too?”
A tear trails down Trudy’s cheek as she continues to stare out the patio door.
“No, Teddy. There’s money for you, but that was just an excuse for why I came.”
“Then what?” Teddy asks, exasperated. “What is the real reason? Enlighten me, please.”
My cheek trembles, and I look at Teddy, knowing what is coming next.
“I was the prey,” Trudy whispers. She suddenly and viciously jabs a finger at the roadrunner and screams, “I was Daddy’s prey!”
The roadrunner hightails it toward the mountain.
“I wasn’t fast enough or smart enough to outrun my roadrunner,” she says, voice low and hoarse, a thunderstorm of tears—a
rarity of rain in the desert—drenching her tunic.
I stand and walk unsteadily out of the bedroom. When I am outside, I collapse against the wall, my legs rubber. I slide down the mid-mod wallpaper until I am lying prone on the terrazzo, the tile cool on my hot face.
“When Daddy would drink, he would get . . .” Trudy’s voice becomes as quiet as a pin drop. “. . . friendly. He would ask me to sit on his lap, or have a daddy–daughter date to get ice cream at the Dairy Queen. He would play with
my hair when he was drinking and driving. He would look at me too long. He would . . .” Trudy clears her throat “. . . get
excited.
“Mama knew, which I think is why she drank, and why he hit her. She tried to protect me, and I tried to protect you, Teddy,
by being Daddy’s friend so you wouldn’t be around him too much when he was drunk. I knew what he would do to you eventually,
and to me, and I couldn’t let that happen. I fought him for a long time, Teddy, for such a long time . . . so I met a boy,
you never knew him, and got pregnant so Daddy wouldn’t try to touch me again. I’d rather he beat me for my sin than . . .”
Trudy’s voice trails off. The house buzzes in silence. “I finally told him. I thought maybe he would understand why, or forgive
me, or kick me out of the house, or I could have a real family, I don’t know—but I knew I couldn’t be alone with him when
he was like that or I would . . .” I can hear Trudy crying now.
After a moment, she gathers herself and continues.
“But one weekend, Daddy got really drunk, threw me into his truck and forced me to have a back-alley abortion.” Trudy releases
a gasp. “He said God would punish me forever for what I had done—me!—and that I could never speak a word of it to anyone, or he wouldn’t just kick me out of the house like he did you, he would kill me for humiliating his family worse than you ever did.
I wasn’t allowed to go out, and he didn’t let me watch TV, or listen to music, or have friends.
I could only go to church. I lived in hell, Teddy, and I know you did, too, but you were safer on the streets than you were at home.
I married Ralph just to get out of the house, and I never told him a thing.
I never loved him. I only wanted a home and a family where I felt safe and protected.
That’s why I sided with Daddy. I didn’t want you coming back while he was alive.
That’s why I couldn’t go back again to see Mama.
I’ve been living with this guilt forever.
And now that Ralph is dead, I only want to repair all the damage I did to you.
No more secrets. They have nearly killed the two of us.
Please forgive me, Teddy. I don’t know if God ever will, but I need my brother to. Please.” She sobs. “Please, Teddy!”
I clamp my hands to my ears.
My heartbeat thrums a sad soundtrack, and I shut my eyes.
I hear a loud crash.
I lift my head and peek into the bedroom.
A glass is shattered on the floor.
“Oh, God, no! No no noooo!”
Teddy is standing, but he is bent over, hands on his knees, as though he’s about to faint. His body—his entire being—looks
broken. He sounds like an animal howling in pain, like the ones I hear late at night, followed by the cackling of coyotes.
“Please tell me that’s not true,” he finally says. “I can’t hear this. I just finally realized I want to live, and now I just
want to die. And I just wanted to hate you forever.”
“But Teddy, why?” Trudy asks.
“Because, if I didn’t, then we’re equals in this fucked up world.”
Teddy straightens up, opens his arms and engulfs her.
“I’m so sorry, Trudy. I’m so, so sorry.” He is weeping. I have never seen this man cry, not even at John’s funeral. He has
always shut off his emotions like a leaky faucet, only Teddy ignored its repair.
“I wasn’t there for you,” he says. “I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know.”
Trudy grabs her brother’s face.
“Why do you think I was so mean to you?” she asks with an almost wistful smile. “I didn’t want you to be around me. I wanted you out of that house. If you hated me and you hated Daddy, you were safe.”
Teddy falls to his knees, and Trudy holds him.
I sit up and lean against the wall.
Sid and Barry peek their heads out of their own bedrooms.
“Is everything okay?” Sid whispers.
“I don’t know,” I whisper back.
“Are we okay?” Barry asks.
I nod.
They come into the hallway, take a seat on the floor beside me and lean their heads on my shoulder.
“I should have told you about Leo,” Sid says.
“I should have told you about the role,” Barry says. “I’m just going through a lot.”
“Me, too,” Sid adds. “We love you, Ronny.”
“Do you?” I ask.
“More than Barry Manilow,” Sid says.
“More than The Golden Girls,” Barry adds.
“That’s a lot,” I say. “You know I can’t stay mad at my best friends.” I remember a favorite Rose line from one of our shows.
“After all, we’ve eaten over five hundred cheesecakes together.”
“You mean, drank over five hundred martinis together,” Sid corrects me.
“You say toMAYto, I say toMAHto.” I smile.
“So, what’s going on in there?” Barry asks.
“No more secrets, as I said on stage.”
I take a deep breath and tell them why Trudy is actually here.
They sit in stunned silence. Then Barry comes clean about how he got his role and his relationship with Kyle.
“What should I do?” he asks. “I have the role of a lifetime, but at what cost to my integrity? I just feel so gross.”
I look at Sid, who looks at me. Our expressions are bemused, to say the least.
“You have integrity?” Sid asks.
“This makes you feel gross?” I ask.
“Not funny,” Barry says.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I do have some advice to you, though.”
“Yes?”
“You’re a writer, Barry. Why don’t you write your own rules for once? Write your own story, Barry.”
“I’m so angry!” Teddy screams from the bedroom. “I don’t know what to do!”
We all stand and peer in the door.
He is holding a mannequin head over his head.
“Not the wigs!” we all cry. “Not the wigs!”