Judy & Liza & Robert & Freddie & David & Sue & Me... (13 page)

I was nonplussed, perplexed, and paralyzed, but I didn't have the luxury of basking in those feelings because moments later there was a loud, aggressive knocking on the door. The desk clerk was standing there sputtering something in anger, all red faced and furious. He pushed his way past us into the bedroom, where Madam was holding court in her underwear on the little balcony that looked down over Bay Street. This was no awful nightmare, it was really happening, not to her, but to me. Judy was crying and, at the same time, singing “Over the Rainbow” to a large group of big, beautiful, black, seminaked longshoremen below. Their number was growing, and they were hooting, hollering, and generally getting crazy. I doubt even one of them had any idea who she was—just some drunken woman who liked taking off her clothes and singing. They were going to enjoy it while it lasted, and it lasted a little longer than the desk clerk liked. Judy had a death grip on the wrought-iron balustrade that framed the little balcony. It took all the strength Orval and I had left to pry her fingers loose. We dragged her back into the room kicking and screaming, while the desk clerk told me in emphatic terms to get her out of the hotel inside of ten minutes. “Orval,” I said, “sit on her if you have to!”

I couldn't take a chance on driving in this unfamiliar place with a crazy lady in the car. I needed a driver. The only vehicle I could find on short notice that came with a driver was a hearse. Seemed appropriate to me! Although we were not yet dead, we were still wrestling with a near-death experience. Orval and I managed to get Judy back into the aqua muumuu she had stripped off and, using a hold just shy of a hammerlock, got her downstairs again. Wacker's wonder was nowhere on the horizon.

In moments of extreme duress I react with efficiency while contemplating nonsense. Would I ever again see the strappy sandals, which I had had on my feet only once eons ago (three whole days) in Saks Fifth Avenue? Good-bye, floating chiffon! The once-gleaming white ducks, now stained and filthy past recognition, were all that remained of my purchases, and only because they were on me and had been from the get-go. They were now ready to be trashed. My clothes were sticking to me, and they smelled.
I
smelled. It's okay, I reasoned, still somehow capable of being momentarily rational.

Judy had admirers in the hotels where she had performed. Someone would surely save us. On the way to the airport, Judy's demeanor ratcheted down yet again to mewling and whiny, and although she was operating on shaky legs, they were her own. Things got even better once in transit. We were seated against the bulkhead of the all-one-class plane; Judy at the window, I sat on the aisle next to her and Orval across from us in the same row. Only a sprinkling of passengers behind us, and given that Judy was still whimpering, we were fortunate not to have autograph seekers streaming down the aisle. Maybe we could even get away without her being recognized.

When she asked me for her makeup, I rejoiced. The ugly episode seemed to be over. It appeared as though she wanted to look respectable when she got off the plane in Miami. She took her compact out of the travel pouch, looked out the window on her right, and then started to powder her nose. When she turned back to me, it looked as if blood was coming out of every pore in her face. She was cut and bleeding all over her cheeks, her forehead, and her chin. Blood stained the entire front of the aqua muumuu.

She had apparently taken the mirror out of the compact, cracked it against the window, and powdered her face with the shards of broken glass. She looked at me exactly as she had in the past when she cut herself; that is, with a sort of quizzical smile—I call it her Mona Lisa look—it says, Okay, feast your eyes on what I've done. Now what the fuck are you going to do? Will you abandon me? It was the acid test. The episode is made even more ghoulish when she grabs me and hugs me, so that blood is all over me too. I am talking to her, trying to reach her, but she does not hear me because she is once more in that dark tunnel beyond the sound of anyone's voice. And, frankly, what is there to say? I'm not sure what keeps me from screaming.

Judy and I had been through many bad scenes together, but never one like this. Little by little she was teaching me about self-mutilation. The stories about Judy in the press and on the tongues of the gossips were all about drugs and liquor. I had never read a word about cutting and burning. It was news even to David and Freddie. Did others know? I don't know. I only know what I saw, and what I saw convinced me that Judy cut herself when I was there because I could save her. Here again I found myself thinking, She will overdose on pills when she is alone, but never cut or burn herself in private. She needs both a witness and a savior, and sadly, it is me. And so it was during all the time we were together.

*   *   *

This episode went way beyond pills (not that they couldn't kill her; in fact, they did) and beyond slitting her wrists because it was so ghastly, grisly, so unexpected, and so bizarre. It shocks me when I hear about someone cutting themself. But Judy Garland?! That face! That fabulous face! Perhaps not one of the most beautiful faces, but certainly one of the most endearing. Dorothy's face. The face of our childhood. It didn't belong solely to her, it belonged to us all.

It was the most horrific thing I'd ever witnessed. I think, many more times than I would like to, about being twenty-six and sitting there while one of the world's greatest entertainers is slashing her face to ribbons right next to me. The plane was flying over the Caribbean, but Judy was a million miles from Oz, and my feet were planted in hell.

I sent Orval running to the stews for towels, water, ice, and first-aid—whatever they had. They knew Judy was on board, and they were excited. They all came running, empty handed, to see what was wrong. Wasted seconds—nothing to stanch the blood! I was frightened. Blood everywhere. All over her, all over her seat, covering her muumuu down the entire front to the hem, on her legs, all over my filthy white pants, my shirt, and my face. I can only imagine what a horrible sight it was for them. One quick glance, however, and they sprang into action, and, God bless them, they didn't ask any questions. They took care of her as well as they could, given the limitations. I promised them all autographed pictures. How lame is that? They would have terrible stories to tell. Would anyone believe them? My mind went there for a moment. It didn't matter anymore. Just get on with it. I was exhausted, and I'd stopped caring about Judy, about what anyone would think, about anything or anyone including myself.

We were able to get off the plane. The stews had packed her face in towels loaded with ice. One of them had a so-called coolie hat, and with its sash we tied everything into place. We tried getting some stains off her clothing and mine, but it was hopeless. We were both a mess. One of the stews spoke to the pilot on my behalf, and, following my instructions, he radioed ahead to Ben Novack, owner of the exquisite Fontainebleau, where Judy had performed.

I knew something about the dealings that Freddie Fields had had with Novack. Back in another lifetime, Novack had advanced Sid Luft, then Judy's husband, twenty-five thousand dollars for an engagement that Judy never played. Luft stole the money. Freddie settled the problem by having Judy do two successful performances at the Fontainebleau. Novack became a friend again—and Judy was a friend in need. Indeed!

Fortunately he responded to the call and, best of all, was able to arrange a limousine waiting on the tarmac when we arrived in Miami. With the cockpit crew, we carried her into the car, and it sped to the hotel. Novack was waiting for us at the back entrance by the kitchen, where Judy was quickly whisked up the service elevator to the presidential suite in the penthouse. Novack rode with us. It was a kind of insurance that none of the hired help would ever say a word to the press if they wanted to keep their jobs.

Like so many others who had done favors for Judy, Novack was extending himself to protect his franchise. Now he would always be able to book Judy and fill his nightclub. And what was I getting out of it? My salary was hardly enough. There wasn't a moment of Oh, poor Judy! left in me. I was fed up. I was finished. I had reached my saturation point. This last ugliness went further than I was willing to go. I started questioning everything. Did Judy's personal unhappiness entitle her to create so many problems for so many people? Was she worth all the trouble and unhappiness she caused? Maybe she was to the people she made a lot of money for, but I wasn't one of them. I was a salaried employee. I hated how my bosses were exploiting a sick woman, and I was helping them. And the longer I hung in, the unhappier I got. This didn't mean I was any less ambitious than before, but I started to feel that maybe I could serve that ambition without serving her. I would see this chapter through to the end, but, for my own survival, I felt I had to close the book on her.

The presidential suite that Ben Novack put us in was an expansive blue, white, and gold monument to luxury with many spaces: a huge living room, a dining room with a table meant to seat at least twelve, four bedrooms, and multiple baths. It was designed for entertaining on a large scale. It was decorated with expensive furniture upholstered in the finest fabrics, and offered incredible ocean views from almost every room. I didn't know such places existed.

There would be time to look, touch, and admire later. Now was the time, finally, to get a doctor who could take care of Judy, do whatever he could for her cuts, and put her to sleep for at least twelve hours. (I hated thinking of myself wanting always to put her to sleep.) Men like Ben Novack were able to accomplish virtually anything quickly. A doctor appeared and took care of business. First he pumped a horse-size syringe of Demerol into her butt, and she went out; then he went to work on her cuts. Orval and I chose our own bedrooms and said goodnight to each other knowing that, without our having much in common, we now shared a bond that could never be broken. I was so tired I was ready to go to bed dirty, but then I would have soiled the beautiful sheets.

A hot bath with fragrant bath oil, a shampoo, rich body lotion, a valet who took away all my clothes (including the filthy sneakers), a brand-new terrycloth robe that felt like cashmere to me, a king-size bed with exquisite linen—all mine! It was hard realizing it had only been three days since I'd left New York: three days that felt like a year, three days in which I felt I'd aged ten years. I lay back in the bathtub and thought about my next move while luxuriating in the glorious hot water. I would call David Begelman first thing in the morning and quit. I was ready to move on, and not a minute too soon. Let someone else carry the drug case all over Christendom; let someone else watch Judy pour a fruit cocktail of pills from myriad vials into her hand each night, washing them down with the awful swill she drank. I was sick of the pills, and especially sick of the goddamn wine, of needing a standing order for a dozen cases at a time. She left half used bottles everywhere she went. Let someone else buy her handbags large enough to carry two bottles of liebfraumilch—the 9 percent solution that she said was saving her life—on all the planes, trains, cars, and boats. The booze that was saving her life was ruining mine, and I was horrified by the self-mutilation.

I never slept soundly with Judy in the house. It was 11:00 p.m. when I finally turned in, and 4:00 a.m. when I awoke. I got up and slipped quietly down the hall just to make sure Madam was okay. I may have hated her after these last three days, and I definitely knew I was going on without her to wherever my future might take me, but at that moment she was still my responsibility. I wasn't sent to Miami with her for a yachting vacation, but to take care of her, and until I turned her over to someone else, I would fulfill that task. We had been through something terrible together. She had fallen apart. I was still standing. I knew I was by far the stronger of the two of us, and it was my job to help her survive.

The suite was dark and quiet; it felt normal for four in the morning. I turned on a light in the corridor and tiptoed to her door, opening it ever so slowly so that it wouldn't make any noise. She wasn't in bed. I could see from the illumination in the hall that her room was empty. I immediately looked at the bathroom door, which was wide open, the bathroom dark. I turned on the lights and went in. She wasn't there. I ran through all the open rooms in the suite. She wasn't in any of them. Finally I went to Orval's room and woke him up. “Judy's gone,” I said. In his stupor it didn't register.

“Who's gone?” he asked me.

“Judy's vanished into thin air. She's not here! Orval, get up.” He was now fully awake.

“She must be here,” he said.

“Come look.” He went with me to her room, and we started to do what I now think of as being one of the silliest things I ever did. We looked behind the drapes and under the beds in all the rooms. We checked out the closets and looked in the bathtubs. We got busy agreeing with each other that with the amount of Demerol that had been pumped into her butt, even standing up would be hard for her to do. Leaving, impossible! And yet she was gone. Finally I called the switchboard, asked for the desk, and inquired whether anyone had seen Ms. Garland go out. They gave me the answer they were instructed to give.

“I'm sorry, we don't presently show her registered in the hotel.”

“C'mon, you and I both know she's here, except she's not—at least not at the moment, and I'm in the presidential suite with her, except she's not with me. Now you can see that I'm where I'm supposed to be. I have to find out where she is.” The person at the desk steadfastly maintained that she was not registered, and the assistant manager on duty did the same. So much for that! I had no clue about where to look, but I did know what to do next: I called Begelman, filled him in, suggested he get his ass on the next plane to Miami and said: “By the way, I quit. If you're not here, I'm leaving anyway. This is your vacation now.” I couldn't believe those words had come out of my mouth—including “ass.”