The Poem.
River of Night
& I this eye, open.
At Schwab’s. She’d been off Nembutal for months. She’d been taking moderate doses of chloral hydrate prescribed by two doctors & had plenty of that at home, fifty capsules at least. She had a new prescription from a new doctor for Nembutal which she took to Schwab’s that night to be filled & waited while it was being filled, seventy-five tablets because she was going to be out of the country traveling for weeks & while waiting she moved restlessly around the brightly lit drugstore avoiding only the magazine counter & lurid displays of Screen World, Hollywood Tatler, Movie Romance, Photoplay, Cue, Swank, Sir!, Peek, Parade et cetera in whose pages MARILYN MONROE lived her comic-book life & the young woman cashier would recall Sure we all knew Miss Monroe. She’d come in here late at night. She said to me Schwab’s is my favorite place in all the world, I got my start in Schwab’s guess how, and I asked how and she said, Some man noticing my ass, how else? and laughed. She wasn’t like the other big stars who you never see, who send in servants. She came in herself and she was always alone. No makeup and you’d hardly know her. She was the most alone person I ever knew. That night it was around ten-thirty. She paid with cash counting out the bills and change from her wallet. She got mixed up counting and had to start over. She always smiled at me and had something friendly to say like we were girls together and that night was no exception.
The Masseur. At midnight there came Nico she’d nearly forgotten, & she met him at the door & apologized for not calling but she wouldn’t be needing him that night & she insisted upon paying him, a handful of bills he would count later & discover to his astonishment nearly one hundred dollars far more than his usual fee & when he asked should he return the following night she said possibly not, not for a while, & Nico asked why & she said laughing Oh Nico, you’ve made my body perfect.
The Elixir. Of these mysterious powders & liquids she would make an elixir delicious to her as Dom Perignon, & as intoxicating.
The Fairy Tale.
THE BURNING PRINCESS
The Dark Prince took the Beggar Maid by the hand
& commanded her Come with me!
The Beggar Maid knew not but to obey, she was
dazzled by the beauty of the red sun
shining upon the waters of the world.
Trust me! said the Dark Prince.
& so she trusted him.
Obey me! said the Dark Prince,
& so she obeyed him.
Adore me, said the Dark Prince,
& so she adored him.
Follow me, said the Dark Prince,
& so I followed him.
Eagerly despite my fear of heights I climbed the
notorious ladder of 1001 rungs
& each rung rimmed with flame.
Stand here beside me! said the Dark Prince
& so I stood beside him
though frightened now &
wishing to be home.
On the high platform swaying in the wind
high above the cheering crowd
the Dark Prince took up the magic wand
of the Impresario.
I said, But who are you? & he said
I am your beloved.
I had been bathed in perfumed waters
& the impurities of my body drained from me,
the crevices of my body carefully cleansed.
The unsightly hair on my skull had been bleached
of all color & made to be fine as silk
& the hairs of my body had been plucked
& my body covered in a fragrant oil to give me power
to withstand pain others could not bear.
It was a magic oil, the Impresario promised.
Coated on the body it mingled with the oil of the body
to produce a film of invulnerability like a shell
& though thin as the translucent membrane of an egg
it would burn & burn & not cause pain.
Said the Impresario, Here is the Elixir to drink.
& I held the goblet in my hand that shook
& high above the cheering crowd I hesitated
& The Dark Prince commanded, Drink!
I trembled with fear.
I tried to speak, the wind blew my words away.
Here. At the edge of the platform, said the Impresario.
Drink of the Elixir I command you.
I want to turn back, I said.
The wind blew my words away.
Drink, and you will be the Fair Princess!
Drink, and you will be immortal.
I drank of the Elixir.
It was bitter & made me choke.
Finish the Elixir, said the Impresario.
To the last drop.
& so I finished the Elixir,
to the last drop.
Now you will plunge forward, said the Impresario.
Now you are the Fair Princess
& immortal.
The Impresario worked the crowd to a frenzy.
Far below, there was a tank of water for me to dive into.
Far below, a band was playing circus music.
The crowd was becoming impatient.
The Impresario lighted a torch.
The Impresario worked the crowd to a frenzy.
You will feel no pain, the Impresario said.
I was hypnotized by the flames—
I could not look away.
The Impresario brought the torch to my head
& at once my hair was aflame
& my naked body aflame.
I lifted my arms my head flaming
spires of flame.
The crowd was hushed now
a great beast staring.
Such pain as I felt was more than I could feel.
Such pain!
My hair afire, my belly afire, my eyes afire,
I would leave my burning body behind.
Dive! commanded the Impresario. Obey me!
I dived from the platform into the tank of water far below.
I was a burning jewel, a comet hurtling earthward.
I was the burning Princess, immortal.
I dived into the dark, into night.
The last thing I heard was the maddened screams of the crowd.
I ran along the beach barefoot & my hair whipping in the wind.
It was Venice Beach, it was early morning, I was alone &
the burning Princess was dead.
& I was alive.
The Sharpshooter. In dark clothing & his face masked the Sharpshooter entered the secluded Mexican-style house at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive from the rear. He had a key provided him by the informer R. F. The Sharpshooter was one who acted upon orders & those orders having to do with physical facts, evidence. He was not one to interpret. Not even his own actions would he interpret. He was without passion & without pity. Gliding weightless through the darkened house as any butcher bird through the air. In a mirror he would see no reflection. The beam of his narrow flashlight was no wider than a pencil but powerful & unwavering. The Sharpshooter’s will was powerful & unwavering. Evil is a word for the target. Evil is what we mean by our target. He would not know if the Agency had sent him on this mission to protect the President from the President’s blond whore who had threatened him & in this way threatened “national security” or whether he would this night execute such actions that, when revealed to the public, would damage the President for being associated with the blond whore. For the Presidency & the Agency were not invariably allies; the Presidency was an ephemeral power, the Agency a permanent power. The Sharpshooter knew of this female’s long involvement with subversive organizations in America & abroad & of her marriage to a Jew subversive & her sex liaison with the Communist Sukarno of Indonesia (an encounter in the Beverly Hills Hotel, April 1956) & her public defense of such Communist dictators as Castro; he knew, what would have enraged him if he’d been a man of passion & not calculation, that the female had signed in
flammatory petitions challenging the power of the very State to which he had pledged his life. Yet he would not speculate. He would gather evidence in a valise & deliver it to be examined & destroyed by his superiors. He would destroy no evidence himself. Incriminating diary entries, documents, & potential (or actual) blackmail materials the Sharpshooter would know nothing of. The first of these items was a silver-foil rose covered in dust, in a vase in the living room; this, he placed in his valise. Next, a diary or journal into which numerous sheets of paper had been inserted, on a small dining room table untidy with books, scripts, newspapers, dirtied cups & glasses & plates. He leafed swiftly through this notebook knowing it was evidence & must be confiscated. Words arranged as “poetry” in an earnest schoolgirl hand.
There was a bird flown so high
He could no longer say, “This is the sky.”
If the blind man can SEE
What about ME?
To My Baby
In you,
the world is born anew.
Before you—
there was none.
Baby! That sounded dangerous for someone.
The Japanese have a name for me.
Monchan is their name for me.
“Precious little girl” is their name for me.
When my soul flew out from me.
Japs! That didn’t surprise him.
Help help!
Help I feel Life coming closer
He smiled. He slipped a hand inside his jacket, to finger the six-inch golden-eagle neck feather carried in an inside pocket against his heart. Next, he came upon lists of words, clearly code words, in that same earnest schoolgirl hand to deceive. Obfuscate obdurate plangent assurgent excoriate palingenesis/metempsychosis These materials the Sharpshooter placed carefully in his valise for experts to decode, analyze, & in time destroy. For all that came into the Agency as evidence would be shredded in the Agency’s immense grinding machines or consumed by incinerator. (Did this apply to agents themselves, one day to be erased from the Agency’s files? Not a patriot’s question.)
All that would remain would be reduced to a file & that file enigmatic in its brevity & language, indecipherable even by the majority of agents. The Sharpshooter then proceeded to the darkened bedroom at the rear of the house. Here, the subject herself lay in bed seemingly asleep. Judging by her hoarse & irregular breathing the Sharpshooter could trust she was deeply unconscious. His informer R. F. had so assured him, the blond actress slept a drugged sleep each night & would not easily awaken. The Sharpshooter though by August 1962 a seasoned professional & hardly a roughhewn lad riding the range in his dad’s pickup, twenty-two rifle cocked to fire, felt nonetheless a stab of excitement in the presence of prey. And this prey, the notorious Blond Actress. For always the prey like this female is “unconscious”: unknowing & ignorant. Never is the target personal. As evil is never personal. The President’s whore was a junkie & alcoholic & such a death would not be unexpected in Hollywood & vicinity. On her bedside table a sordid array of pill bottles, vials, a glass partly filled with a cloudy liquid. In this room a small window air conditioner hummed & vibrated but was inadequate to purify the rich rank female odor & that of spilled powder & perfume, soiled towels & bed linens & something sharply medicinal that made his eyes water; he was grateful for the close-woven mask over his mouth & nose shielding him from despoiled air.
The subject would offer no resistance. R. F.’s word confirmed.
The woman lay naked beneath a single white sheet as if already on the coroner’s slab. This sheet clung damply to her fevered body outlining belly, hips, breasts in a way both exciting & repugnant to observe. Beneath the sheet the legs spread lasciviously, one knee partly raised. In rigor mortis such a raised knee! One of her breasts, the left, was nearly bared. The Sharpshooter would have wished to cover it. The platinum hair matted like doll’s hair & ghost-pale almost invisible against the pillow. Her skin too was ghost-pale. In life the Sharpshooter had many times seen this female & was struck always by the white skin & the unnatural smoothness of that skin. And what the world called in craven servitude Beauty. Even as the great birds of the air golden eagles & goshawks & others were beautiful in flight & yet might be reduced to mere meat, carcasses to be strung up on posts. Now you see what you are. Now you see the Sharpshooter’s power. As if the female could hear his thoughts her eyelids quivered but the Sharpshooter had no true fear; in such a state a subject might open her eyes & yet not see, for she was beset by dreams & distant from her surroundings. Her mouth was slack as a gash cut into her face & muscles in her cheeks twitched as if she were trying to speak. In fact she groaned softly. She shivered. She lay with her left arm flung above her head, framing her head. Her armpit exposed, & dark-blond soft-curly hairs glinted in the beam of his flashlight, repugnant to him. From the valise he removed a syringe. It had been prepared for him by a physician in the employ of the Agency, filled with liquid Nembutal. Though the Sharpshooter wore gloves they were latex gloves thin as any a surgeon might wear. In no haste the Sharpshooter circled the bed determining from which angle he would strike. He must strike swiftly & unerringly as directed. Ideally, he might straddle his target. Yet he could not risk waking her. Finally he stooped over the unconscious woman at her left side, & as she drew a deep heaving breath & her rib cage rose, he sank the six-inch needle to the hilt into her heart.
Hacienda. In the darkened movie house! It was her happiest time. Recognizing Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre years ago when she’d been a little girl. Those afternoons she hadn’t been lonely when Mother was at work for she sat through double features & memorized all she could to tell Mother & Mother was captivated by her breathless accounts of the Dark Prince & the Fair Princess & sometimes asked her to tell more. In Grauman’s, she was not to sit near men. Solitary men. And so that afternoon in a row close by two older women with shopping bags she knew she would be safe, & so happy! Though the movie ended with the Fair Princess dying, her golden hair spilled over a pillow & the Dark Prince brooding above her & when the lights came up the women were wiping at their eyes & she wiped at hers, & wiped her nose on her hands, though already the beautiful dead face of the Fair Princess was fading, an image on a screen of less substance than the whirring of a hummingbird’s wings.
Quickly she left the movie house before anyone could speak to her as sometimes they did, & it was dusk & streetlights burning & surprisingly windy & damp for she was dressed lightly, her legs bare & exposed, short cotton sleeves baring her arms as if she’d dressed or been dressed in another season. She made her way home along the Boulevard remaining near the curb as Mother instructed. There were few vehicles on the street; a trolley rattled noisily by, but no one appeared to be inside. She could not lose her way, she knew the way. Yet at Mother’s apartment building she saw it was THE HACIENDA & not the other; & she knew she’d become confused in time. This was not Mesa Street but Highland Avenue; yet it was Mesa Street for there was the Spanish-style stucco building with the green awnings Gladys said were eyesores & the corroded fire escapes Gladys joked would crash beneath anybody’s weight if there was a fire. THE HACIENDA with its front stoop brightly lit blindingly lit as a movie set & surrounding the entrance was darkness & suddenly she was afraid.
Keep your concentration Norma Jeane don’t be distracted the circle of light is yours you enclose yourself in this circle you carry it with you wherever you go Norma Jeane was on the stairs & Gladys had come to meet her, Gladys was smiling & in a happy mood. Her lips were reddened & her cheeks & she smelled of something flowery. So Gladys was younger. What was to happen had not yet happened. Gladys & Norma Jeane giggling like naughty girls. So excited! So happy! There was a surprise for Norma Jeane up in the apartment. Her heart was beating like a hummingbird held in the hand & frantic to escape. There, movie posters on the kitchen walls, Charlie Chaplin in City Lights & his eyes staring at her. Beautiful soulful dark eyes staring at Norma Jeane. But Gladys’s surprise was in the bedroom, Gladys tugged at Norma Jeane’s hand, &
lifted her to look at the handsome smiling man in the picture frame who seemed in that instant to be smiling at her. “Norma Jeane, see?—that man is your father.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOYCE CAROL OATES is a recipient of the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde (a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize), and the New York Times bestsellers The Falls (winner of the 2005 Prix Femina Etranger) and The Gravedigger’s Daughter. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978. In 2003 she received the Commonwealth Award for Distinguished Service in Literature and The Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement, and in 2009 she received the Medal of Honor in Literature from the National Arts Club.
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PRAISE FOR BLONDE
“Oates may have created the most important novel of her career.”
—Newsday
“Grimly compelling. . . . A portrait of Hollywood as terrifyingly hallucinatory as Nathaniel West’s The Day of the Locust.”
—Wall Street Journal
“A fascinating imagining of the hellish battles that Monroe fought with herself.”
—Playboy
“In Blonde, Oates has found a character and a narrative mode that exploit all her strengths as a writer . . . a narrative intensity often found in her stories but never sustained so successfully in a long novel and an exuberant mastery of language that suggests a writer at the peak of her power.”
—Atlanta Journal and Constitution
“Blonde is a true mythic blowout, in which Marilyn is everything and nothing—a Great White Whale of significance, standing not for the blind power of nature but for the blind power of artifice.”
—GQ
“Ms. Oates has hit another one of her targets. This vengeful history is about the majesty of imagination. Marilyn’s self-imaginings were cruelly curtailed. Come now the artist to accord Marilyn her rightful status, as artist. The artist uses flesh and fact, the artist transcends them.”