“All The Money’s Gone. Now What?”
A final chapter from my upcoming Memoir
THIS CHAPTER IS RIGHT BEFORE THE FINAL CHAPTER OF MY UPCOMING MEMOIR WHEN I GO TO THE BANK AND DISCOVER RICK, MY HUSBAND STOLE ALL MY MONEY OUT OF OUR JOINT BANK ACCOUNT.
HE LEFT ME ME WITH A ZERO BALANCE AND NO WAY TO GET HOME TO THE UNITED STATES WHICH IS THE PIVOTAL TURNING POINT IN THE MEMOIR.
It might help you to understand the Memoir if you read this first chapter:
CHAPTER 19: From Untitled Memoir
I DON’T REMEMBER the details of my last night of the Beyond Belief show in Sun City, South Africa where I was impersonating Streisand — when I threw my wig off my head suddenly — while on stage singing.
I really don’t recall what happened after that or even any details of it. It’s like I have amnesia.
All I know is that I did it.
It happened, and it was the end of the line. The end of the pain. The end of the suffering, the end of tolerating this show for all those months. The end of the abusive husband back stage — the end, but also it felt like a new beginning.
Maybe I didn’t want to remember.
Maybe I blocked it completely out of my memory all these years because maybe… just maybe… the whole thing was too damn awful, and I wanted to banish it from my brain — for over 25 years. Exile it forever.
But, I DID want to remember — because it seems to be the one story I always tell people when they ask about my show business days or when I explain my life as an impersonator. It always culminates with me telling them this ‘wig toss’ story because that’s the one memory I recall most about this time in my life.
The joke is, I “flipped my wig literally and figuratively” which seems to always get a chuckle.
It is odd how that whole period of my life (which to me was life threatening and dark) could come down to — someone chuckling. It almost seems wrong to equate an entire traumatic awful experience with one silly joke and a punchline but maybe it just feels urgent to tell this story of my wig toss — my wig landing on an unsuspecting audience member, and how startled and baffled (beyond belief?) the dancers looked who were left with their feet half dangling, in midair between kicks, when I abruptly ran off stage —
Then the shocked looks on the faces of the thousand people in the audience.
I mean this shit is a great story!! You can’t make this stuff up. Truth is greater than fiction?
(Weirdly I have zero memory of what happened that night after I tossed my wig off my head. What I did after this point remains a mystery in my brain — even 25 years later.)
I do vaguely recall the next day though, after the producers fired me.
I was cleaning out my dressing room drawers, packing up all my makeup fast, throwing it all haphazardly into a big brown bag. I was not worried a bit about organization. I had done this many other times at gigs that I felt panicked at and needed to bail from — QUICKLY!
I was used to running.
After throwing my wigs and costumes, jewelry and makeup into suitcases and bags I recall feeling total freedom and then exuberant joy as I fled the theater for the last time.
Ahhhh….
I ran outside and looked up at the serene African night sky, into the dark moonlight. I felt a calm cool satisfying breeze on my face — so glad to be freeeee!!
The next memory I had was the following night going to see the Beyond Belief show, sitting in the audience — being an audience member now for the first time ever — sliding down inconspicuously into a cushiony red velvet booth in the back, watching my replacement, a Liza Minnelli impersonator, belting out NewYork NewYork and Cabaret with the same dancers, who miraculously learned a new set of songs for her.
My heart felt huge relief, just to be sitting there unnoticed and quiet in the dark watching the show.
No more pressure on me. Yay!! — but also an overwhelming embarrassment and deep shame to have done what I did.
The next memory I have is being on a train with Rick — both of us stoned out of our minds on marijuana brownies and ecstasy singing silly songs and laughing in our cabin.
It was an eerily silent train car with only the WHOOSH WHOOSH sounds of the train sliding through the African bush out of Sun City towards Cape Town.
He was singing me one of our old favorite songs, — even using my nickname that he used to use lovingly — and for those few drug crazed moments on that train the two of us connected like we did when we were first dating, happy and in love, carefree and silly, full of zest for each other and life.
For some reason neither of us was facing the reality of it all — that we had just spent 7 months in an abusive dangerous relationship. That he almost killed me. He did kill me. He killed my spirit — but neither of us wanted to go down that path. That path of… what the heck just happened?
We were both too stoned on marijuana brownies, looking out the train window at the small shack sized colorful houses zooming by… Looking at the teen aged black kids on rickety old bikes riding home.
The last 7 months at this gig were some sort of odd dream. A figment of my imagination, a big blur, just like it is today.
But the most important thing to me…the amazing good news in all of it was that I KNEW I had my $78,420 saved in the bank account in Cape Town waiting for me — — from singing in this show!!
I would soon be able to have it!!
That thought made me smile.
(The irony is that in the next chapter I go to the bank and all my money is GONE from our joint account. I am left alone in Cape Town with no money to get home to the States but this is really only the beginning of the story…)