A Carlin Home Companion (2 page)

Evidently my future mom also had her
own
“big” plan for her life. It was called the “Get the Fuck Out of Dayton plan.”

Brenda had always felt like a stranger in her own life. She knew she didn't belong in small-town Dayton. She was like her dad, Art Hosbrook, who'd been a jazz singer in the thirties, “The Whispering Tenor.” She was Daddy's little girl.

Alice, her mother, sensed that Brenda had Art's wild spirit in her, and kept her on a tight leash. In high school, while my mom wanted to be out wearing poodle skirts, singing along to pop music, and making out with boys under the bleachers, her mother had her wearing homemade clothes, practicing Debussy on the piano, and steering clear of all boys except for the approved-of boy next door, Ken. My mom, too afraid to rebel, remained the quintessential dutiful daughter. She made the National Honor Society, won piano competitions, and only let Ken go to second base. Her virtue was rewarded with a full scholarship to Ohio Wesleyan to study piano. She couldn't wait to escape and begin to live
her
life. But Alice would have none of that. “Women don't go to college,” she said to my mom, and refused to let her go. Alice told her that she could get a job, but only until she married and started a family.

Seething with disappointment, my mom decided if she couldn't go to college, then at least she'd have sex. The story goes that my mom went to Ken and basically jumped his bones. She claimed she forced him to have sex with her. Of course I'm not sure how much convincing it takes to make a teenage boy “go all the way.” Mom got her “revenge.”

She also got pregnant.

Alice had always diligently marked my mom's periods on a calendar, so when it didn't show up, Alice knew immediately what Brenda had done. In the car ride home from the family doctor's office, where the bad news had been confirmed, Art quietly drove them as Alice informed my mother, “You've made your bed, now you must lie in it.”

Brenda was forced to marry Ken. A few weeks after the wedding, while shopping with her mother in Rike's Department Store for furniture for their new apartment, my mom miscarried in the restroom. It was twins. After a miserable year of a sham marriage, she and Ken acknowledged that they weren't happy and amicably divorced.

As a divorcée at the age of twenty, my mom was deemed tarnished by Alice. In a flash my mom went from model student, musician, prized daughter to shameful, wanton whore.

*   *   *

Now, in 1960, Brenda was having the time of her life. Working at the Racquet Club she could let her hair down, drink and smoke as much as she wanted, and most important, rub shoulders with the type of people Alice would certainly never approve of—entertainers.

After his first show George couldn't help but notice Brenda hanging out at the bar. Besides her musical and scholarly talents, Brenda was what they called a “knockout.” When she walked into a room, she lit it up—fabulous cheekbones, an electric smile, blue eyes, and a laugh that made the whole world come alive.

After some chitchat, George asked Brenda, “So what does one do in Dayton, Ohio, after a show?”

“Well, you could find a diner and have some breakfast, or…” she replied.

And this is when Brenda Florence Hosbrook, Alice and Art Hosbrook's good-little-honor-roll-girl-turned-black-sheep-of-the-family took the leap of her life and looked the young, handsome, and funny George Carlin straight in the eye and said, “Or you could find a girl with a stereo hi-fi and go home with her.”

George slowly but astutely asked, “Do
you
have a stereo hi-fi?”

Every night for the entire two-week run, George went home with Brenda, and they “listened” to her stereo hi-fi.

After the two weeks were up, Brenda told George, “I love you.”

George told Brenda, “I'll call you.”

It's not that he didn't like her, it's just that he had this big “Danny Kaye plan,” and it had never included another person.

Months went by, but no phone calls or letters came. Then one day, out of the blue, George called her. The spark between them reignited immediately. He knew she was the real deal, and he had to see her again. They made plans for him to come down after his New Year's Eve gig in Chicago to spend a weekend with her.

The day came and went. The next day came and went. By the third day Brenda was officially heartbroken. He had once again disappeared without a trace. And then sometime during the lunch rush, when Brenda was seating guests, George entered and stood in the front. When she saw him she dropped all the menus and ran the entire length of the restaurant, straight into his arms. They left immediately. No one saw them for three days.

When they finally emerged from the “Sleep & Fuck Motel,” they were engaged.

The next day George and Brenda sat across from Art and Alice at lunch, ready to break the news to them. But things were not going well. Alice just glared at George. Alice did not like entertainers. Because Art had been one, she knew entertainers too well. That's why, when they got married, she'd made him give up his music to get a real job so that they could raise a family.

Finally an opportunity arose when Art excused himself to go to the restroom, and George quickly followed him. As they stood side by side at the urinals in the restroom of Spencer's Steak House in Dayton, Ohio, George said to Art, “I'd like to marry your daughter.”

Slightly startled, Art replied, “Oh, yeah? Okay.”

It was official. Except for the engagement ring part. Due to a serious lack of funds, the ring had to wait. Eventually it came—in the mail. With my dad on the road, and no money for another trip back to Dayton, he couldn't hand-deliver it. But they didn't care about the formalities. They'd found each other.

And even though Alice admitted that she would never understand her daughter's choice, she made my mom's wedding dress and invited them to have their small, humble wedding ceremony in the living room of the house that Brenda grew up in on River Ridge Road.

On June 3, 1961, George and Brenda became husband and wife.

 

CHAPTER
TWO

Westside Story

M
Y EARLIEST MEMORY
is of my mom screaming while pulling her head out of the oven. No, she wasn't doing a Sylvia Plath and trying to off herself. She was just trying to ignite the pilot light when
boom
—the gas went up in a ball of flames, singeing her eyebrows, eyelashes, and a good portion of her bangs.

I, being barely three years old, began to cry. Mom began to cry, too. This was worrisome to me because normally she was a capable, adventurous, and most resilient human. I immediately wanted my daddy because I knew he could fix it. But he wasn't there. He was at work.

Mom, wiping her tears, picked up the phone and called him. She wanted my daddy, too. I don't remember the exact conversation, but I have no doubt it went something like this:

Mom: “Can't you just come home now?” (tears flowing again).

Dad: “Honey, you know I can't.”

Mom (blowing her nose): “I know. It's just that—”

“You're okay, right?” Dad jumped in.

“Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay,” Mom admitted.

“How's your hair?” Dad asked.

As she felt for her missing bangs, Mom said, “It's a mess.”

“I bet you just invented a new hairstyle!” Dad said, hoping to cheer her up.

“I suppose,” cracking a smile. “But I don't know what you'd call it,” Mom said, her mood lightening a bit.

“How about ‘Boom Bangs'?”

Mom exploded in laughter, “‘Boom Bangs'! Yes.”

Dad laughed with her, relieved that things seemed okay and that Mom had calmed down.

“How's Kel? Put her on,” he asked.

My mom handed me the phone. “It's Daddy.”

I hadn't quite recovered yet. “Daddy?”

“Hey, Kiddo. You my Stinkpot or my Baby Doll?” This was a familiar game my dad and I played with each other when he called.

“Baby Doll,” I said insistently. I was never a stinkpot.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I took some breaths between my sobs and saw that my mom had calmed down, too.

“I'm okay.”

“Good. I love you, and I'll be home in a few hours. Now put Mommy back on the phone,” he finished. I handed Mom the phone and heard her say, “Okay, I'll see you then. I love you too. Buh-bye.”

Daddy could always make Mommy and me feel better.

But I was still worried. I'd never seen my mom look so alone, confused, and powerless. She looked frazzled. Of course, it could have been her singed bangs. They could make the Queen of England look frazzled. But it felt like more. Like some part of her could no longer cope.

After she hung up, I leaned against her and said, “It's okay, Mommy. It's okay,” partly to make sure that she really
was
okay, and partly to let her know that even if Daddy wasn't there, I was. She noticed the distress on my face, quickly picked me up, and said, “Don't worry, Mommy's okay. I'm fine.”

We went into the bathroom to assess the damage to her hair. She plopped me down on the counter, wiped her raccoon eyes (from crying), saw her crazy-looking bangs, and began to laugh. “Well, they
did
need a trim!” And with that laugh, something further relaxed inside me—I knew I was safe again. Mommy was okay.

But something inside me had been put on alert. My safe, idyllic world had a new wrinkle in it—sometimes Mommy needs Daddy, but Daddy isn't there, and this makes Mommy sad.

And that was when, somewhere in the shadows of my young psyche, a sliver of a thought was implanted in my unconscious—I must do everything in my power always to make sure that my daddy is happy so that my mommy stays happy, too. When they're happy, I'm happy.

*   *   *

Of course there was a very good reason my dad couldn't come home that day. Just months earlier, at the beginning of 1966, Hollywood had called, and the Carlins had answered. My dad was now the head writer and resident stand-up for
Kraft Summer Music Hall
, hosted by John Davidson, an ultracorny variety show that was a summer replacement for
Kraft Music Hall
with Andy Williams. Talk about processed cheese. But, hey, it was the 1960s, and Velveeta was all the rage. This job was the big break we'd been waiting for.

So, when the offer came in, Mom and Dad packed up what few items we owned and moved from an apartment on the West Side of Manhattan to an apartment on the Westside of Los Angeles.

The “Danny Kaye plan” was working out great for Dad. For Mom, not so much. Of course she was thrilled that he was finally getting the big break he deserved. There was no one else on the planet who believed in my dad's dreams and talent the way my mom did. She was just not too thrilled with this whole stay-at-home mom thing.

Who could blame her? She didn't know a single person in Los Angeles—we'd only moved there a month ago. She couldn't get a job—Dad wouldn't let her work because he didn't want me being a latchkey kid like he'd been growing up. But most important—right now she had no bangs. She was alone, bored, poorly coiffed, and hanging out with a three-year-old all day.

She missed the good old days. With Dad's career now being shaped by agents and managers, she resented being stuck at home expected to be Donna Reed, her only purpose being to cook up dinner, navigate the traffic of Los Angeles, and chase after her energetic, curious toddler. She was used to cooking up the next move for Dad's career, navigating the highways to gigs in their old Dodge Dart, and chasing after the Danny Kaye Dream. She loved me and being a mom, but she knew she was so much more. She'd never be contained in the traditional housewife role of the 1960s. She had too much spark and smarts in her for that.

This was not the life she'd signed up for. She'd survived too much the last three years for this to be her reward.

Back in the spring of 1963, between Mom's pregnant belly counting down to T-minus three months to my birth, and Dad's crazy schedule on the road, they both decided it would be best for her to leave New York, where they'd been living in my dad's old bedroom in Mary's apartment, and go home to Dayton to have Alice help her through the first precarious months of motherhood. Even though Mom and Alice would never see eye to eye on most things, they had managed to maintain a relationship, and even bonded on a new level with my impending arrival. My mom was actually looking forward to her stay in Dayton.

When she got off the plane, she was shocked. Her mother looked as if she'd aged ten years. It had been only two months since she'd last seen her. Mom had been home to help Alice through her recovery from a mastectomy. She knew the recovery was going slowly, but no one had prepared her for this, and, typical of her family, no one was talking about it, either. In order to find out what was going on, my mother had to demand the truth from the family doctor—Alice had only six to eight weeks to live.

My mom's world was shattered. Instead of coming home to Dayton to fall into the safety of her mother's arms, she now would watch her die. She felt so alone. Her mom pretended everything was fine, and her dad walked around in a daze. And my soon-to-be dad did his best to juggle time in Dayton with needing to be on the road to scrape together some dough.

Brenda and Alice did what they were good at—keeping busy. They spent their days decorating the nursery and sewing my baby clothes. And they spent their nights, sometimes until three or four in the morning, “trying to stretch out the time, trying to express all our feelings, asking questions that had never been asked before, and trying to seek answers to everything,” my mom told me years later.

Despite Alice's stern and demanding nature, or maybe because of it, their bond was deep and strong. Brenda loved her mother, and now deeply feared a life without her. And yet it was inevitable. In April 1963, six weeks before my birth, Alice Hosbrook died of metastatic breast cancer.