After a couple of months, I noticed that Dad was even more dependent than before on Mom’s approval, as well as on her limitless interest in encouraging his pursuits. With more adult eyes, I could see that, in a way, he was just another one of us kids. He’d ask her advice on how to deal with clients who wouldn’t pay the bills, or how to handle lazy employees. She alone helped propel him into a more profitable career. When September approached, and I was heading back to begin my second year at the Neighborhood Playhouse, I wondered if any one of us would ever encourage Mom’s dreams.
Later that year, one of Robin’s letters began by describing a loss of innocence in America, a sort of national feeling of anger. She wrote about the Vietnam War, and all the young men who were dying for our country. Nobody talked about it at home. She was worried Randy might be drafted.
Randy does hang out with an occasional friend now and then. With them he laughs and appears incredibly easy to be around. The Randy I see on these occasions strikes me as more like a façade. But then putting on a façade is something everyone in our family is good at. This may sound strange, but sometimes I wonder if he might be someone I wouldn’t want to know. Mom’s the one who’s most touched by him. To me he doesn’t fit the description of a brother. It’s hard to understand him. I really don’t think anybody does, not even mom. His room is sort of barren looking. On the plus side, I wish you could have seen mom’s surprise when he got a A in his creative writing class at Santa Ana Junior College. Apparently, his teacher told him his poetry was interesting, so much so she’s going to submit one to the school paper. Mom was beaming when she told me, “He will make it, just you wait and see, he will make it.”
Miss you,
Love Rob
And then, later that same year, this letter from Mom:
Dear Diane,
Randy got a notice to report to the Draft. He needs a doctor’s letter stating that he’s unable to fight in a war. It’s a disturbing element in all our lives. Last week he went for the physical and got sick, so I had to pick him up. Tomorrow he goes back. Grandma Hall called to see what happened. She thinks he was scared! Well, why not? Wouldn’t you be? What does everyone have against peace? A letter arrived the other day asking for verification from a psychologist that Randy’s unable to serve. It felt like a threat. He’s so anxious!
Love, mom
Mom made Randy see a psychiatrist, who sent a letter to the draft board assuring the powers that be that a certain John Randolph Hall from Santa Ana, California, was not fit to serve. I wonder now what Mom did with that letter, and, moreover, what it said about Randy’s psychological problems. According to Dorrie, Dad did not discuss Randy’s Conscientious Objection to the war, or the so-called medical issue that got him out of induction. Vietnam was no longer a topic of conversation over dinner. Instead, Dad began pushing Randy to come work at Hall and Foreman. Randy responded with that goofy “okey-dokey” manner, as if everything was all right, even though it wasn’t. Most of the time he’d stay in his room and wouldn’t come out. To Dorrie, the whole draft event was strange, because Randy previously appeared to have every intention of enlisting. She wondered if there was a disconnect between how Randy presented himself and who he was.
At the Neighborhood Playhouse, I was consumed with envy. Cricket Cohen got all of chain-smoking guru Sandy Meisner’s praise. I was having a hard time “living truthfully under given imaginary circumstances.”
One day, in the middle of a repetition exercise that began with an observation, I said, “Cricket, why are you smiling at me?”
Cricket responded with “I’m not smiling at you. You look jealous of my power,” or something like that, anyway.
I replied, “You’re not smiling at me?”
Cricket said, “Why would I waste my time responding to such a dumb remark?”
“A dumb remark?” I said.
Suddenly Mr. Meisner stopped the exercise, pointed his finger in my face, and said, “There’s a slight chance you’re going to be a good actress someday. But you desperately need to experience more life and stop being so damn general,” which was another way of saying I hadn’t taken notice of Cricket’s attitude, nor did I seem bold enough to follow my instincts instead of repeating such half-assed responses.
Twice a month, I’d walk down the stairs of the Rehearsal Club, a theatrical girls’ boarding house and my home away from home, and dutifully put quarters into the pay phone attached to the basement wall. I’d listen to family news. Robin had a new boyfriend, named Bob Gulley. Mom was almost finished with her college degree. Dad’s business was doing well. Dorrie got straight A’s on her report card. I did not ask about Randy’s state of mind.
One day, a large manila envelope was waiting for me at the front desk. Inside, Mom had sent a recent photograph taken with her new Nikon F camera. The back of the eight-by-ten-inch black-and-white picture was stamped “Dorothy Hall 845 North Towner Street, Santa Ana, California 91706 Photographer.” On the front, Randy’s nineteen-year-old hand leans against a thin wooden railing. A hawk’s talons are wrapped around its circumference. With its back to the camera, the hawk outstretches its wings, as if ready to fly into the background of a hazy, endless sky.
Looking back at this picture, taken fifty years ago, I now see a hawk about to airlift his next meal, my brother’s extended hand. On Randy’s middle finger, I recognize one of the six silver rings Mother made for each family member the summer she took a silversmith workshop at Santa Ana Junior College. Each ring was an emblem of her endless pursuit of love. Who but our mother would make six identical rings, one for each of us, in honor of securing our eternal bond?
I imagine Randy admiring the hawk, especially its visual acuity. I can picture him trying to understand the hawk’s perfectly timed sudden dashes from hidden perches, to sink its talons into some unlucky lizard or frog. Randy must have loved speculating on the hunt and its consequences. I doubt that Randy took into consideration that a hawk might be free from pondering the full cycle of its actions.
Even though Mom’s photograph reveals nothing more than a wooden railing, a faceless hawk flapping its wings, a silver band on an unusually long-fingered hand in the middle of a white background, it tells a story. In one of his journals, Randy writes: “In an old photograph, I’m looking in the wrong direction. Even now I watch out the wrong window for a falling star. But, once again it is somebody else’s miracle.”
Miracles were scarce back at home. Robin and Dorrie both reported that drinking had become a nightly ritual with our parents. Even before Mom’s glass was half empty, Dad would insist on refilling it. According to Robin, Mom was struggling with change. I was long gone. Randy retreated to his room as often as possible. One night, she told me, our parents had a huge fight over the fact that I didn’t want to go on family vacation that summer. Mom, as expected, stuck up for me. After a lot of yelling, Dad suddenly got out of control and threw a wine bottle at her. It smashed against the kitchen wall. This was the beginning of a separation that lasted almost six months.