BEING A GOOD WRITER DOESN’T MEAN YOU LIVE LIFE MORE WISELY;
IT’S THE OPPOSITE, MOST OF US
WADE IN DISASTER.
This is an excerpt from the memoir Iโve been working on many years. The first manuscript was 800 pages; about three of them were worth reading. The book mutated about 2000 times.
โWhatโs it like knowing your father is a gangster? Did you know when you were a teenager? Did your father kill anyone? Did you ever meet Bugsy? Arenโt you afraid of his friends? You know they kill people.โย ย ย ย
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย I was thirteen years old when my best friend told me my father was a gangster. She didnโt mean any harm. We told each other everything.ย We were standing in the Brentwood Pharmacy one day in 1966, and we turned the book rack around until we found โThe Green Felt Jungle.โ
โThatโs the book, let me look first and see what it says.โ She whispered. I waited while she flipped trough the pages.
โOh my God, there he is,โ she said grasping my shoulders.ย We hunched over the book and read the description of my father beneath his photograph.
โAllen Smiley was the only witness to the murder of Bugsy Siegel.โ
โWhat does that mean, who is Bugsy Siegel?โ I asked.
โShush, not so loud, Iโm afraid to tell you this Luellen, itโs awful. I donโt believe it. โ
โWhat is it? Tell me.โ
โBugsy Siegel was a gangster, he killed people. Your father was his friend.โ
I donโt think I should read this, โI said replacing the book on the rack.
โDonโt tell your father I told you,โ she warned.
โWhy not?โ
โMy mother told me not to tell you, swear to me you wonโt tell your father.โ
โI swear, come on letโs go.โ
My father called himself Allen Smiley. The FBI tagged him โarmed and dangerous.โ The Department of Justice referred to him as the โRussian Jew.โ I called him Daddy.ย ย e had salty sea blue eyes blurred by all the storms heโd seen.ย When I said something funny, his eyes crystallized and flattened like glass, smoothing out the bad memories.ย He was always a different color, dressed in perfectly matched shades of pink, silver and blue. My small child eyes rested cheerfully on his silk ties, a collage of jewel tones. The feel of his fabric was soft like blankets.ย He was very interesting to look at when I was a child and open to all this detail.
LOVE isn’t about holding on, it’s about letting go. That kind of love, the physical need, physic release, it cannot last.
Adventures in Livingness
ย A sunrise of prosperity and a sunset on hardship.
In my home there is one large staircase window that faces east. Each morning before I descend the stairs I stop at the landing, to watch the day begin. The sun must rise past an assortment of tree limbs and trunks, and up over the ย hillside of the mountains. By the time Iโve had my coffee, the sun has risen above the obstructions. I am now jerked awake, like a slight nudge a parent might give you, โCome on–wake up! You have school.โย The sunlight guides me through the morning, and argues with my disagreement of the days activity.
The moment the cafรฉ took effect, I want to begin writing, but shameless sunlight in my eyes and the dance of the birds are tempting me to step outdoors.ย When you live in seasonal climate, days and nights lure you outside, like old lovers that you must see again. The gradual awakening unfolds layers of thoughts, beginning with the anxiety of the times. The impending hardshipย oozes out like a bad smell. Some mornings I cannot look ย at the newspaper, the headlines read like promotional movie advertisements, banks bankrupt, homes foreclosing, woman commits suicide, the shocking prick of national disasters is a surgical ย awakening.
There is no time to waste, no money to squander, it is a time of reduction and refusal. How can I not spend money today.
This is what brings me to the sunrise of prosperity, I have to keep studying the illumination of light, and Iโll ย move forward, and diffuse the ย chaos.
As the interruption of minor mishaps knock on my door, my head turns away from it. Iโve learned to erase the panic, and do what I have to do, and that is write.
Last week, while I was upstairs, prone on the sofa, figuring out a transition between two men, whom I love, someone came to the door, knocking, ringing the bell fiercely, oh what is that. I open the door,
โ Yes,โ
โ Are you all right? Iโm from the security company, your alarm isnโt connected. We came to check on you.โ
I stood there with a dumber than dumb expression, and assured him I wasnโt held captive or about to throw myself out the window. When I returned to the desk, I kept seeing his expression, he really didnโt believe me. I turned the alarm off when Rudy left for San Diego. ย Real estate agents our showing our house because itโs up for lease. My mind is a closet of mafia memoir notes, and I canโt remember to close the refrigerator door.
Later in the day, if I havenโt ventured outdoors, I take a walk around the plaza, and muse over the herds ofย tourists, and search their expressions for interior moods. I donโt see panic and anxiety, I see relief; ย couples are rigid from ice and chill,ย and they shuffle in boots, directionless, ย gaping at the churches and adobe arches, they shoot photographs, standing in the middle of the street. Vacation is bliss in the middle of discontent.
When I return to my desk, it is time to print the days work. This is always a ritual of great expectation, filled with disappointments, surprise, and sometimes a whiff of elation.ย ย The sun has made itโs journey to the other side of the house, the back porch is like starched light, it burns the eyes and flesh, like hardship, the immediate effect is callous. ย There I sit and review the pages.ย The transition worked; the crawl from uncertainty to confidence broke through. ย Now is the time to slouch in the chair, close my eyes, and rewind a few scenes back.
Hardship is like the sun, unmerciful when it is met face to face, and transforming when we are protected. That translates to less spending and more creating.
While I am lounging in this beautifully historic old home, one track of time keeps appearing in my images. It is a time when space was limited, finances on a string as long as my finger, and uncertainty a nightmare that became a lullaby. It is that time again, nothing at all unfamiliar With the same resources I had then, all is well, the sunset can go down, and I can laugh because the adventure has risen above the circumstances.
\
I was about twenty-three at the time, living in one of the blandest bachelor apartments in Westwood, working in an office cubicle, and daydreaming about places in Travel & Leisure magazine. My father called one afternoon with a no reply command to come to his apartment.
โI have something to discuss with you.”ย Growing up with gangsters involves many face-to-face meetings because the telephones are tapped.ย It is of no consequence what I happen to be doing at 7:00 PM that night– if Dad has something to discuss, we have to meet in person.
โWhat about?”ย I ask.
โWhat did I say? Didn’t I say we have to discuss it here?”
In those years, my head was waxed with false perceptions that Daddy was what Daddy told me – in the oil business.ย It did not occur to me that all those meetings at his apartment, in restaurants and parks were because he did not want any uninvited listeners from the FBI or other government agency.
After clearing my passage with the receptionist, I rode up the elevator to his Century City Park apartment.ย After peaking through the peephole, and asking if I was alone, he opened the door. I greeted him with a kiss on the cheek, and he asked, what kind of out fit is that. My attire on any given occasion should be a colorful coordinated double-breasted pants suit.
โI have some zucchini and rice in the refrigerator –will you make your old dad that vegetable dish?ย My father didn’t cook anything beyond boiled eggs, and broiled fish. I nodded and started for the kitchen.
โWait a second, I’m not through talking–sit down. Well– I’m finally able to do what I’ve wanted to do for some time. It hasn’t been possible until now; Iโm sending you to New York. ย Can you take a week off work?”
โI will of course-but arenโt you going?
โNo.ย I’ve lived New York in the best years and wouldn’t go back if you paid me a million dollars.
โWhy?โ
โWhy? Because I did it all, and now it’s your turn.” I moved closer to him on the couch so I could wrap my arms around and kiss his cheek.
โThe first thing you have to do is get a new outfit.ย You wonโt go to Manhattan in those jeans-for crying out loud. You’re staying at the St. Regis Hotelโฆ I have it arranged, the guy owes me a favor and I had a bit of a windfall this month.ย Your mother and I stayed there. โ
“When? Where is the St. Regis?”
โDonโt interrupt-don’t you think I know where to send you? As I was saying, I booked a week for you. ย Now, I have it all set-up. Youโll have a driver, and do not get into a cab or any other car, you stay with the driver I hired, do you hear me Luellen?โ
โCanโt I walk?
โYou can walk after he takes you to the places you want to go. Do not argue with me, I know what I’m doing. You’re just a little naรฏve about New York. Anything can happen; itโs a jungle and youโre little red-riding hood. ย A fella will walk pass you on the street, clip your purse, and you’ll never know, a guy will carry your bag for you, and you’ll never see it again.”
The year was 1978, but I cannot remember which month. It was still cold enough to wear the mink coat he had given me forย this occasion. I wrapped that mink around me everyday for a week. The Hotel Valet was familiar with the name Smiley, as was the hotel manager and the driver he hired was a double agent. He was also aย bodyguard. The black Lincoln continental never left my sight.
The St. Regis is on West 55th, a few short blocks from Tiffany’s. That was my destination of choice, not for the diamonds, but a glimmer of where Audrey Hepburn sipped coffee and nibbled on a doughnut. I didn’t really care where the driver led me; I was visually climaxing on the traffic cops, the horses in central park, the side walkers streaming in one band as if all connected, horns blaring, lights flashing and the hi-rise silhouettes against slices of the sky.
My father expected me to have lunch at the World Trade Center, dinner at La Cirque, and in between long drives through Little Italy, Central Park, and Riverside Drive.ย My breath stopped when we were launched into the sky to have lunch at Windows on the World. While sipping my first Manhattan the city spun me around and for the first time I realized I was a real nobody-that I’d been no where– if I hadn’t been to Manhattan, and the impression cut off my short tail of confidence.ย The psychological departure that turned me from Daddyโs little girl into Luellen the woman will continue.
a continuation.
Windows on the World for anyone who has not been there supplied even the sourest puss, a great big slice of hope, because you were on the same level as the tallest building.
I wish I would have saved the matches or the napkins from that day. ย The fact that my father and Bobby Short are both gone, the World Trade Center is gone, and I am still a nobody amplifies the memory.
The night I went to see Bobby Short I was seated at a table, and while I tried to inhale the glitterati of the evenings crowd, I was ineffectually blowing cigarette smoke into the thick stream of smoke lingering above our heads. ย The room was New York jammed every table a colorful mixture of cocktails, handbags, and beautiful arms adorned with strands of gold.ย I had been on the town in Hollywood, seen movie stars up close, and dined with them. This crowd generated more mystery. Their body language was fluid; they did not purposely draw attention, because they were not there to be discovered by Lefty Lazar, or Robert Altman.
Bobby Short was a nightclub piano player after everyone went home. You could picture him sitting at the piano, as you would Will Rogers on his horse, long after the image was diluted. ย His eyes tap-danced with the eyes of the audience; they were all together. ย I was young, naรฏve and impressionable,ย and that is why my father sent me so I would get the impression.
During the day we were driven around by the tight lipped body guard, and we watched New York. It wasnโt until we met Al Davis (not the Raiders Owner) but a man who owned a distillery in Kentucky and liked my father enough to buy him a new Cadillac. Dad told us we were to meet Al at the Carlyle for Sunday Brunch. There is a stage like ambiance walking on 5th Avenue on aย Sunday in New York. New Yorkers dress for a walk and I was again impressed at how sophisticated everyone looked so early in the morning.
Al Davis brought along a tall good looking man, that reminded me of a run around guy; he does everything heโs told and is of good temperament until somebody insults his boss.ย He poured Champagne, made phone calls, and Al Davis was WC Fields liquored by the time the eggs benedict arrived. He was not only a prankster, and a tease, he was bloated with years of drink and laughter, and anything else was just not worth his time.ย Knowing that my father was not going to walk in and surprise us, ย allowed us to feel ย slightly deserving of fanning that freedom.ย Alโs associate moved closer to me, and taunted my feminine prowess, which until that particular day had not been taunted by any friend of my fatherโs.ย It was then that I felt like a woman inย New York.ย I have not felt that particular brand of womanliness since. No offense to any other gentlemen that spoiled me on occasion. It was that Sunday in New York, sitting in a booth, with worldly older men that made the lasting impression my father didnโt anticipate.ย During the brunch Al kept repeating, โ Donโt tell your father, heโll have me shot.โ
Several weeks later Al and his friend were in town and asked me to join them at a nightclub for dinner. Was I to tell my father, or just go along.ย I decided to go. We ended up going to Pipโs, an exclusive night club in West Hollywood. That evening, I tossed my adolescence around and swirled on the dance floor with frightening vulnerability.ย I didnโt get home until very late.ย The next day, my father called.
โ What time did you get home?โ
โ ย I went out with Al Davis, he kept me there.โ
โ I know where you were, and I know who you were with, and everything else you do.ย Donโt you ever accept an invitation from one of my friends unless I am with you!ย What kind of idiot are you? ย Havenโt I taught you anything?ย I cannot be responsible for a guy like Davis if Iโm not there! ย ย Iโm too upset to look at you; donโt bother coming to see me. โ
I returned to the Carlyle one more time to see Bobby Short, but I have never enjoyed a more outrageously mischievous Sunday in New York like that day with Al Davis.
I read in one of my books on writing that the middle of the novel is where most writers face the demon. The beginning is a gallop, the end is a relief, but the middle wiggles in and out of your grasp. The middle of our lives reflects this same obscurity.
The middle of a life span reflects all we have accomplished and all we have left incomplete. This is what they call a mid-life crisis. I get it every year. This year it is more comical. Iโve finally accepted that my constant relocating, reinventing, and being restless are not going to be solved. I am going to keep doing these. At the bottom of the restlessness is the fear of finding rest more enjoyable than movement. This flotation of comedy rotated around me last night while I was standing out on the porch observing the peacefulness. The scenery of Santa Fe is a comforting, ethereal beauty that comes at all times of the day and night, and the flow of people is integrated and festive. All I could think of was where I should go next. The discomfort of mid-life comes from trying to assimilate what you have and what you want.
Many years ago, in the summer of 1987, I was seated in a cafรฉ in Monaco, truly, and a man that I was traveling with told me, โYou have to make a choice.โ He embarked on a long discussion about choices we make in life and how everything depends on these choices: how you live and with whom, and what you do. He pointed out to me over my first really authentic Salad Niรงoise that I was an oblivious example of a woman refusing to choose. I was more interested in the salad, the yachts, the casino around the corner, and the fact that I didnโt have an evening gown to wear to dinner. I listened without argument or insult, but I was disturbed by what he said. I didnโt understand completely, but he was older and had much experience and conviction. That conversation now fits into the mid-life crisis, the comedy of errors in my life, and maybe in yours, and just how much travesty we can ignore. For my fault, as it is, I do not want to sign, commit, or make final decisions. I want it all to be a temporary placement that allows me the freedom to change.
I have lost track of my European friend, but if he met me today, he would say, โYou have not changed at all.โ So that is why I was standing there in the darkness on the porch and laughing like a silly girl, because it is true. I have not changed at all.
The choice facing us at mid-life is making a change now, risking losing all we have accomplished, compiled, and attached, or throwing the dice.
Beyond the obvious changes in activity, relationships, and scenery are the internal travels. They are not so easily booked. You cannot wake up one day and say, โI โm off to become more compassionate, or more practical, or more generous.โ These journeys are taken when other factors play into our lives, such as when we get sick, demoted, or experience a trauma.
It is a very subtle inconsistency. When I unplug all the voices and listen to the one that understands, that is when I write. The middle of the story and the middle of life are the same. We and our characters have to make a choice.
***
The course we choose to study doesnโt begin in school; it begins the moment we recognize that life is our teacher.ย I chose the course of love between a man and a woman.ย Yet all I’ve learned from Anais Nin, Joan Didion, and Lawrence Durrell, about love isn’t guiding me.ย ย Iย ย have to start over, and develop wisdom based on my own experiences.
How do I word his laughter, a long winded guttural explosion without pause, that struck my humor and I joined him, and our laughter sort collapsed into one, like making love or something, and it felt so good, I didnโt want to stop.
On adventures in lovingness. The course we choose to study doesnโt begin in school; it begins the moment we recognize that life is our teacher. I chose the course of love between a man and a woman. .
It seems once a month; I am jarred into this part of my family history. Just last week, a woman emailed me information she pulled off a website that Iโd never seen. There in the document, was a story about my mother and father.
I began my research fourteen years ago. It started with what I had, one of my fatherโs books; โThe Mark Hellinger Story.โ I leafed through the index and there was my fatherโs name along with Ben Siegelโs.ย According to the biographer, my father visited Mark at his home the night before he died. Mark had stood up in court for my father and Ben at one of their hearings. He was fond of Ben, like so many people were, that arenโt here to tell their story.
After reading the book I rented, The Roaring Twenties, written by Mark, ย and from there the connections, relationships, and characters began to leap out from all directions. I submerged myself in history and photocopied pictures of my fatherโs movie star friends, George Raft, Eddie Cantor, Clark Gable, and his gangsters friends. I found photographs of the nightclubs he frequented, the Copacabana, El Morocco, and Ciroโsย and nightclubs that he referred to in his mysterious conversations. ย I made a collage of the pictures and posted them board above my desk. I played Tommy Dorsey records while I wrote. ย This microcosm of life that was created, allowed me to listen to the whispers and discover the secrets.
I dug into my fatherโs history without knowing how deep I had to go, or what shattering evidence would cross my path. In my heart I felt this was crossing a spiritual bridge to my parents.ย The flip side was a gripping torment, tied to my prying mind.ย I needed to break into the files in order to break my silence, and discover real people, not glamorized stereotypes that fit into the category of Copa dancer and gangster.ย No matter what I uncovered, I always knew it would be ambiguous, and controversial. I did not expect to find a record of murder,ย dope peddling, and prostitution. I believed that his crimes were around the race track, and in gambling partnerships. ย Even so, I could never understand the similarities we shared, unless I knew them as people. Though I have not rebelled against authority as my father did, Iโm not a team player, I resist authority, and I donโt like waiting in lines.
I had to reinvent my mother through the subconscious. I skated over thin ice trying to set her truth apart, from what I had invented, dreamed, or had been told.ย I listened to Judy Garlandโs recordings, and premonitions surfaced, of how my mother loved Judy, how it felt to be under the spot lights of MGM, and dancing in ginger bread musicals while her own life was draped with film noir drama.
I studied my motherโs face in all her films, rewinding and stopping the tape, as if she might suddenly return my glance. ย She had dancing and background shots in the musicals produced by Arthur Freed. I remembered dad talking about Arthur, and how prestigious it was to be in his department.
When I discovered the Museum of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles, I went down and filled out a slip of paper with my motherโs name on it and waited for my number to be called. I felt something like a mother discovering her childโs first triumph. They handed me a large perfectly stainless manila envelope, and a pair of latex gloves to handle the file.ย I had to look through it in front of a clerk.
โThatโs my mother,โ I proclaimed. He blinked and returned his attention to a memo pad. Inside the envelope were black and while glossy studio photographs, press releases, and studio biographies of my mother. The woman who pressed my clothes, washed my hair, and made my tuna sandwiches. ย There she was in front of the train, for Meet Me in St. Louis, and a promotional photograph in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, dated 1947. That was the year Ben was shot.ย I looked further to find more clues. I needed to know where she was the night Ben was murdered. Maybe she was on location when it happened. Maybe she was in New York at the opening of the film. I could not place her on June 20, the day Ben was murdered.ย I imagined my father called her and told her the news. ย The marriage plans were postponed, their engagement suspended. My father had to get out of town.
I spent everyday picking through the myths Iโd heard and read. I heard a clear chord of scorn, for exposing family secrets, โItโs nobodyโs business what goes on in our family, donโt discuss our family with anyone, Do You Hear Me!โ I must have heard that a thousand times.
I began to dig with an iron shovel. ย I asked every question I wasnโt supposed to ask, and preyed into every sector of their ย life. I wanted to know about his childhood, where he grew up, and why he left home when he was thirteen years old. Who were my grandparents, and why didnโt he talk about them. How did he meet Ben Siegel and Johnny Roselli, and when did he cross over into the rackets?
I contacted historians, archivists, judges, attorneys, ย Police Chiefs, FBI agents, authors and reporters across the United States. He always said, โReporters can destroy your life overnight.โย And here I was, uncovering what he had sheltered all his life.
I wrote to the INS in WDC and asked for their assistance. Six months later I received a letter from the INS in Los Angeles. They acknowledged his file, it was classified and they could not locate it.ย The progress was tediously slow, and the waiting oppressive.
While I waited for the files, I read Damon Runyon, and Raymond Chandler stories and attempted to identify which character personified which gangster. The stories were about the people that came to my birthday parties, Swifty Morgan, Nick the Greek, Frank Costello andย Abner Zwillman,(the Boss of the New Jersey syndicate.) The dialect of Runyon and Winchell mimicked the same anecdotes my father used over and over!ย By understanding Runyonโs characters I began to know my father. At night I watched old gangster movies and that opened another door of familiarity.
I read almost every book in print about the Mafia and ordered out of print books from all over the country.ย They began to topple on my head from the shelf above the desk. Allen Smiley was in dozens of them. Every author portrayed him differently, he was a Russian Jew, a criminal, Bugsyโs right hand man, a dope peddler, a race track tout, and sometimes the words bled on my arm.ย To me, he was a benevolent father, a wise counselor and a man who worshipped me.
The INS claimed my father was one of the most dangerous criminals in the United States.ย They said he was Benjamin Siegelโs assistant. They said he was taking over now that Ben was gone.
That day I put the file away, and looked into the window of truth. How much could I bear to hear more?
A woman’s heart is fluid in her body, and a manโs heart is In his sexuality. That is why there is a headache, and a mood, and an exhaustion of feeling. We have to express this to our man so he understands.
Navigating through my post-work world
Every Day is a Gift!
Entertainment website ยท Marketing agency ยท Advertising agency ๐งโฝฃ๐ ๐
The inner voice where gaps of expression are liberated.
Funny Blogs With A Hint Of Personal Development
Become a Story Hunter!
It's just banter
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Escaping reality or facing reality.
Saratoga Springs, New York - Arthur Gonick, Editor
Space, Travel, Technology, 3D Printing, Energy, Writing
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Books and Lifestyle with Hermione Flavia.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER / IGNORANCE IS BLISS - YOU DECIDE
Navigating through my post-work world
Every Day is a Gift!
Entertainment website ยท Marketing agency ยท Advertising agency ๐งโฝฃ๐ ๐
The inner voice where gaps of expression are liberated.
Funny Blogs With A Hint Of Personal Development
Become a Story Hunter!
It's just banter
Larry Harnisch Reflects on L.A. History
Escaping reality or facing reality.
Saratoga Springs, New York - Arthur Gonick, Editor
Space, Travel, Technology, 3D Printing, Energy, Writing
Live Your Dreams Don`t Dream Your Life
Even a bad guy can have redeeming qualities
Books and Lifestyle with Hermione Flavia.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER / IGNORANCE IS BLISS - YOU DECIDE
ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS 