If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor (3 page)

"You stabbed me!" Don screamed, incredulous.

"I did not. You swung at me and I defended myself."

Aside from the occasional near-death experiences, Don and I actually got along well. As we aged and grew, our "roughhousing" became not only discouraged but feared. Epic wrestling matches encompassed the entire house and resulted in broken furniture. The fact that we were both on the junior high wrestling team only made things worse for my mother.

"What's the problem, Mom? We're practicing..."

In the late sixties, war films like
Kelly's Heroes
,
The Devil's Brigade
and
The Dirty Dozen
seemed to be everywhere. Our favorite TV show,
Combat,
only encouraged this preoccupation with war, and Vic Morrow soon became my first favorite actor. He was the embodiment of laid-back cool and I loved how his cigarettes bounced on the edge of his mouth when he talked.

Years later, I worked with Michael Caffey, who had directed several
Combat
episodes. Instead of asking him for motivation, all I cared to know was who could kick whose ass -- Vic Morrow or his commanding officer, Rick Jason? Don, on the other hand, was partial to the character Kirby because he had the coolest gun -- a Browning automatic rifle.

Don took all this make-believe stuff a little too seriously. The difference between us was fundamental: I'd watch
Combat
and think,
Gee, it would be fun to be an actor like that guy.
Don would watch the same scene and think,
Gee, it would be fun to be that guy.
He went on to join the army reserves and got to play the ultimate "war game" in Kuwait during Desert Storm.

Don and I passed many hours with G.I. Joes. We had the basic ones -- the Russian, the Cadet, the Japanese guy, the German -- who didn't? They were cool, but unless you were Billy Jazinski, the spoiled rich kid down the street, there was a limit to how many you owned.

Fighting with "Joes" meant that our military engagements were restricted to "skirmishes." That wasn't enough for the post-World War II, pre-Vietnam kids that we were -- Don and I wanted to stage
full-scale invasions!

The only way to do this was with those little green army men. Down at the brand-new Toys "R" Us, a bag of what seemed like hundreds only cost a couple bucks.

Somehow, it didn't seem right reenacting D day in our living room. Too may soldiers fell behind the sofa, so the great outdoors became the place to rumble.

The backyard, however, was a no-go. Our basset hound, Nuisance, reigned supreme back there. The dangers of fighting in her territory were twofold: running the risk of having entire platoons chewed to death or, even worse, mounting a frontal assault through scattered piles of "dog dirt."

Our front lawn wasn't much better. There were too many trees and tall grass, so battles weren't practical. We'd lose a dozen of them with each "engagement" and Dad sliced any MIAs to ribbons mowing the lawn each Saturday. Of course, that wasn't all bad, because we could round up their shredded carcasses and use them as "casualties." Even at that tender age, we knew war was heck.

Our driveway proved to be a better staging area for campaigns. Because it was dirt, you had a good color contrast and we never lost a single green man. The driveway was also elevated above the lawn on fieldstone. This was ideal, because a defending army (usually Don's) could hole up in hundreds of nooks and it might take an entire weekend to flush them out.

A garden hose added the element of water. With it, an army could be flooded out into the open, where they could easily be massacred. The defending army in this case (usually me) had a certain amount of time to build up damlike fortifications until the evil attacker turned the hose on, unleashing torrents of water. The battles usually were declared over when either the water broke through the defender's dam, or Mom came back from the grocery store.

Eventually, the thrill of these games wore off, so Don and I resorted to more drastic measures: burning the little green men into puddles of goo. In the late sixties, before Ralph Nader halted all the fun in the world, the plastic used in those army guys must have been toxic -- they made the coolest
zzziiiiip, zzziiiiip, zzziiiiip
noise with each burning drip. This game evolved into "lava tossing," where you flung the napalmlike substance at your opponent (or brother), as it dripped from the melting man.

Mom stopped us before Nader did, though, because one day a big flaming blob of plastic sizzled its way into my finger. I am reminded of this, happily, every time I type.

Born in 1952, my oldest brother Mike was a child of the Cold War. His favorite TV show, hands down, was
Man From U.N.C.L.E.
, so everything he was interested in revolved around espionage. To protect sensitive information -- sent mostly from himself to himself -- he spent hours creating elaborate codes and writing them into tiny paper books. There was the
Code of the Pointing Sticks,
the
Words-for-Numbers Code,
and who could forget the
O.O.R.A. Code
(Off and On Reversible Alpha Code).

When not saving the world from evil invaders, Mike was making stuff. Never one for those goofy shop class projects, Mike went right to the real deal -- like a memory device, an electric "stop" light over his doorway, and a metal locator.

It made sense that Mike went into computers because his mind worked like one. He made lists of everything: untrustworthy people (Don and I were often on it), his weekly income from 1959 through 1967 (in cents), and secret hand-to-hand combat routines. To this day, I still rely on "Routine number 6" (to "run headlong into them and tackle them") whenever I'm confronted by an enemy.

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

Mike's use of extensive lists came in handy when it came time to determine the "rules" of our childhood. In a household of three boys who were always tormenting each other, a system of rules and fines was drafted and strictly adhered to. Many contained wording that would make a contract lawyer proud and all fines were "payable on demand."

It became our own brand of justice that addressed issues important to us all. A rule stating that
Don owns half of the hall in front of Don's room
was a key property right. The rule
If Don or Bruce leaves or throws belongings in my room, they are mine unless they want to pay 20¢
seemed a bit harsh, but I'm sure it was just Mike's way of saying "leave me the hell alone."

Simple crimes, like
borrowing stuff without permission, calling names
or
socking someone
only cost the perpetrator 5¢. More obscure offenses, like
hanging around doorway, fooling with light switches,
or Mike's legislative masterpiece,
squealing when I want to look at something Don or Bruce has,
shot up to 10¢.

Some rules were obviously the result of either a pet peeve, or a very specific incident. There would otherwise be no explanation for the 20¢ fine of
taking something from me while I was looking at it,
or the 40¢ whopper for
damaging rocket controls.
In our draconian world, you could even be fined for suspicion.

Some rules, however, did make sense. In the tight quarters of a garage fort, it was simply a matter of decency to place a ban on
"dirtey boots or shous"
(spelling unaltered) and
"letting gassers."

Of course, all of these rules did absolutely nothing to stop the sibling abuse. Mike once laid out detailed plans to raid Don's
left-hand drawer
in his half of the room (that he and I shared) that included an overhead diagram, complete with escape routes and a comprehensive list of excuses to use if he got caught. For some reason, even though Don did
"hit, disobey, lie, steal stuff, and destroy,"
I don't think my mom would have let Mike off the hook.

Because these "raids" happened so often, we each devised ways to protect our "secret stuff." Mike hid things in every possible nook and cranny -- I know, because I went through them all. Don often moved his precious things around, or hid them in "secret books." With a sharp razor blade, usually from Dad's shaver, he hollowed out numerous hard-cover masterpieces from the living room. It wasn't hard to spot which ones were bogus --
War and Peace
isn't usually paired with
The Cat in the Hat
on a ten-year-old's shelf.

Because invading each other's room was such a big deal, I had to do it as often as possible. One day, a plan to bother Don worked flawlessly. I raced into his room, made all kinds of noise and stole a white gym sock. Don was close on my heels as I ran away down the hall and ducked into the bathroom. As he entered the doorway, he saw me flush what he
thought
was his sock down the toilet.

"What did you do that for?! I'll kill you!"

In reality, I had ditched Don's real sock as I entered the bathroom and flushed a strip of white toilet paper (preplaced) into the septic tank. In the end, our fines evened out, because Don promptly gave me a thrashing -- roughly equal to my 30¢ worth of transgressions. I wouldn't have been surprised if Don invented a fine for
pretending to flush socks down the toilet.

Even the bathroom wasn't a reliable sanctuary. There was a lock on the door, sure, but it could easily be opened with a credit card. To combat this, a drawer by the door could be pulled out to block the way. This worked until Mike drilled a hole through the wall of our linen closet and rigged a coat hanger to the drawer itself.

I mocked Don through the door one day, protected by the door lock, only to look down and see the drawer magically slide back in all by itself.

"You were saying?" Don said, as he pushed the door open and began beating the grunt out of me.

INDUSTRIAL-STRENGTH FUN

Mike took charge of building a playhouse in our backyard. The end product wasn't some cute cardboard house with a couple of windows -- it was a three-quarter-scale
tank.