Brando_ Songs My Mother Taught Me - Marlon Brando [60]
Lisa said she was horrified and asked him what kind of treatment I was receiving.
“It’s experimental cancer therapy,” he said, “in which he is injected with live sperm. But they’re having trouble because live sperm is so hard to get.”
The next time Lisa saw Susho, she asked him about me again and he said I was scheduled to come to New York shortly for a treatment, but that my doctors didn’t know where they would find the live sperm they needed. “I was wondering,” he said, “if you would like to help me make a contribution to Marlon.”
For months Susho took her into the supply room at Carnegie Hall apartments and had intercourse with Lisa while holding a plastic bag under her to capture his semen. Then he’d thank her and said he had to rush it to my doctor. She thought she was helping me by doing it.
This story seems staggeringly implausible, but it is absolutely true. After it had been going on awhile, Lisa said, Susho told her that he had seen me and that I looked wonderful, but that the treatments were so expensive that I was going broke, so she started giving him money and jewelry for me.
Though I didn’t see Lisa again for ten years, she became convinced that I was communicating with her after an anonymous caller started phoning her and breathing heavily. She decided it must be me and began talking about our relationship, the sex we had shared, my cancer and so forth. The other person never spoke, but using a code suggested by Lisa, communicated by making kissing sounds with his lips: one kiss meant “Yes,” two meant “No,” three meant “I love you.”
I don’t know who was on the other end of the line, but Lisa was convinced that it was me, and this went on for years. She said that she had a spirit on her shoulder who told her that it was me and what she should say. Lisa was exceptionally intelligent and the only person I’ve ever known who could multiply three numbers by three numbers in her head instantaneously, and yet was not an idiot savant.
Because I was living in California, I didn’t know about Susho’s cancer “treatments” or the phone calls. But several years later, I was in New York, walking down Fifty-seventh Street at about 1:30 A.M., when I thought about Lisa and wondered if she still lived in the same apartment. I asked the man at the desk and he said she did.
I went upstairs and rang the bell. Lisa was in shock when she saw me. She opened the door hesitantly, then started talking fast about my cancer and how happy she was to have helped save my life. Then she talked about the love affair she thought we had carried on via the telephone for almost ten years.
“Lisa,” I said finally, “none of this ever happened. I never had cancer, and I never called you on the phone.”
She didn’t believe me. “Yes, it was you. I know it was you.”
“Why would I call you on the phone,” I said, “and not speak? I’m the biggest blabbermouth in town. This is too weird for words.”
I asked how much money she had given Susho and she said, “About seven thousand dollars.”
I called Susho and told him I wanted to see him the next day. He denied everything, but I said that I believed Lisa, that the New York police commissioner was a friend of mine and that I was going to tell the commissioner everything. Then Susho admitted it. “You’re going to have to make payments to Lisa every week,” I said, “and we’ll alert the U.S. government and the government in Barbados, so don’t try to run because we’ll find you.”
Unfortunately, Lisa decided she didn’t want to put Susho through this, wouldn’t demand her money back and wouldn’t testify against him. I’ve always wished she had.
When I was living above Carnegie Hall, I woke up one night and was startled by a woman standing over me beside my bed. It was a small apartment with only one room, a kitchenette and bathroom, and she was only inches away from me. I jumped and put up my arms. This must have looked amusing to her because I was still flat on my back in bed. I was so startled that I almost pinched her, thinking that she was an apparition.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Why have