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THE BARBARA PAYTON STORY
THE BARBARA PAYTON STORY "Hollywood's just like Egypt. Full of crumbling pyramids. It'll never come back. It'll just keep on crumbling until finally the wind blows the last studio prop across the sands." --David O. Selznick in conversation (1949)
evening san pedro summer of 44
yg barbara payton future filmstar
stands at the edgewater
gazing at lights of tugs
listening to lester young
"i didn't know what time it was..."
her soon to be blond brown hair
moving like a soft curtain in the warm wind
she is 17 & a yr out of school
sailors of san pedro call her BABS
whistle at her on th street
grab their crotches
an hrs ride thru compton
on the red car
she/s on central avenue
after hrs where she/d sing
then dance w/the negro hipsters
reet pleat dixie peach
bird blowing
wardell lester barbara bird
FDR stalin hitler
dimaggio
the second front
the goldbergs
tokyo rose
ezra pound
buchenwald
the dutch oven of bab's stomach
in catalia swimwear
holding a beachball
at venice
she wakes frm a dream
of falling
she is home in bed
a trailerpark
in paramount, california
her infant son cries out
in his own feverish sleep
2.
carhopping at stan's drive-in
on hollywood blvd
the 'back dahlia' murderer
came in almost every nite
always ordering a club sandwich
& chocolate malt fm barbara
of course they never found out who he was...
32 yrs old sandyhaired bankteller
living in tarzana w/ his
sclerotic mom
he stopped coming by after
a few months
babs just didn't have
what he was looking for
but the others—
hot-rodders
sodajerks
the bald producer
the hairyarmed cook
who sometimes drove her home
via mulholland
babs wd count the stars
out the back window
while he ate her
& cursed
& whimpered
3.
Screen Test
all thru 1949
tiny organs of
little men w/
enormous cigars
& monkey gland
operations that
didnt take
passed across her
eyes endlessly
like a pornographic
loop
til she finally got th
break she/d
been kneeling
sucking
& spitting for:
the femme lead
in a poverty-row quickie
called Trapped
barbara uber alles!!
4.
yr test has been pirated by a man w/razorblades for eyes
it is perfect
the black screen bursts into a golden face
a pink tongue moistens a pale mushroom
it hardens, reddens
only in this theatre
are we truly alive
watching you shred the fabric of nite
languidly swallowing the semen of stars
5.
still the new kid in town
after the fight w/ her date
she accepted a ride home
w/ a half-smart guy
who/d forgotten his real job
was to squeeze five grand
out of a pencil-moustached welcher
so they ended up 5 of them
in the black packard
moving east on sunset
to the new freeway
chet baker was on the radio
singing "i remember you"
& wind frm the open window
lashed babs' hair
against the welchers
hot fat face
the next tune was king cole
"a blossom fell"
babs hummed along
trying to ignore the flat
smacking sounds
the whimpers r
occo or guido
made the turnoff
on vermont
& 5 minutes later
he was walking her
to the door—
the perfect gent
she watched him saunter
down the walk
trying not to think
of the packard
as "the death car"
"and so to bed"
(she has an early call)
twinkle twinkle little starlet
seconal & sleepshades
6.
Barbara Payton in Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
so many of her flick titles were
epitaphs for her life--
even Bride Of The Gorilla!
the other evening at the Meeting
i spaced a moment during mary/s
drunkalogue--wondering if babs
had ever drifted into AA
maybe she/d tried dragging tom neal
to one after he fractured franchot
tone/s skull?
the coffee/s black & strong this morning
5 mos w/out a drink
i wonder if barbara was ever involved
in armed robbery for real?
i thot how easy it cd be
w/ a cool blonde like babs
waiting behind the wheel
7.
Summer Stock
barbara & tom
beleaguered lovers
method actors who thought stanislavsky
was a brand of cheap vodka
babs got the roles diana barrymore
was too zoned to play
tom kept mumbling what an underground
class DETOUR had been back in '45
they barnstormed the midwest
all that summer--bab/s heavy makeup
& the dim lighting helped
but tom blew his lines
missed performances
disappeared
THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE
in muncie
steubenville
joplin, missouri
life imitating art
barbara imitating life
8.
Borderlines
it was close to a flophouse
& the jai lai sign from the
stadium flashed late
into nite
she tried to keep a full bottle
of tequila by the bed
& ignore the possibility that
a roomer had died there
yet the center held
the impression of someone
who/d lay down to sleep, then ceased
to move or be moved for quite
some time
she waited nites for enrique
to close up
listening for his steps
on the stairs
sometimes he held a rope
& a red rose-- other times
a butcherknife
it was a game he/d intuited
she/d enjoy
out the window, street noise
drowned the high sounds of
barbara/s orgasm--soft grunting,
spanish curses
morning/s alone, she/d hear him
opening the cantina
singing to himself
she/d stretch & reach for the
almost empty bottle
dreaming about the studios
across the border
or dancing at the mocambo
w/ mickey cohen
& howard hughes
9.
1964
the moon (as the tune used to go) was yellow
babs & i step out to buy a short dog
cruise central, turning on
to success avenue
to park & drink
she/s turning tricks out of a hotrod
lincoln, while i pump gas at a station
over in compton
"sooner or later, baby," i tell her
"our luck/s gotta change"
we drain the bottle & i ease the lincoln
back to the shooting gallery
inside, joanne has OD/d in the tub
& leon is jabbing a saltshot
in her vein
he slaps & walks her til she begins
mumbling abt AFDC, methadone & spinoza
somebody puts on "art pepper plus 11"
turns it up loud
a sweet alto & brown smack
from cocatlan
helping to build
a stairway to the stars
10.
you sat thru tom neal/s trial
enigmatic behind foster-grants
he/d taken a wrong turn, a "detour"
so to speak--b-actor to hardmuscled gardener
who/d strangled his wife
after the verdict yr parents took you in:
barstow or banning or lancaster--
as far west as pa/s ford
managed to get
before the engine blew
you waitressed at the cafe
42, bloated, but still that
dynamite face
you collapsed one afternoon
in yr parent/s bathrm--
a shrivelled liver
or overdose of broken heart
sweating out yr last minutes on earth
on a vomitstained bathmat
while the Summer of Love
went on outside
yellowjacketed blue day
cancer
napalm
paisley
& pain
11.
i thot i/d perfected yr death
yet last nite you stalked me
thru no-man/s land park
followed, ferret-eyed & broken-fingered
down the long path
past slides, swings & merry-go-round
circling the wind-ripped pond
spent 8 hrs in a 49 cent movie
a triple feature watched twice round
stumbled out to wintry sun
past vagrants, silent as
buddha
Michael Shepler © 1988