Brando_ Songs My Mother Taught Me - Marlon Brando [68]
I went over to my neighbor’s apartment. The woman was Standing with her hands between her breasts, her mouth open, and she looked at me with Eddie Cantor eyes; she was stunned. “Where is he?” I asked, but she couldn’t speak; she raised her entire arm and pointed toward her bathroom. I went in, and there was Russell playing in the toilet. When I called him and his head popped up, I said, “What the hell are you doing?” and he twittered some raccoon reply. He was soaking wet. I gave him my palm, he put his paws in it and I gripped him. I always carried him around this way. As I left the woman’s apartment, I said, “I’m terribly sorry about this. I don’t know how it could have happened.” While I was apologizing, Russell’s tail was dripping toilet water all over her beige rug. She was still aghast, bewildered and silent. As I passed the giant policeman, I said, “I’m awfully sorry, officer, it will never happen again.” I entered my apartment still mumbling apologies, closed the door and waited for that ham-fisted policeman to knock on it with a ticket, but nothing happened. To this day, I cannot understand how Russell got into Mrs. Goldman’s bathroom because both bathroom window ledges were only two inches wide and were separated by a one-foot gap five stories up.
One of the fondest memories I have of Russell was when my mother was showing him off to a couple of snooty ladies. He was sitting on her shoulder, playing with her beads and sticking a paw in each ear, which provoked a titter from the ladies, as well as a proud “Ain’t he cute” smirk from my mother. Then he reached around and was feeling the crevice of her smile when she made the fatal error of opening her mouth slightly to say, “No, dear.” That’s all he needed. He shot his paw into her mouth and out came her false teeth. She grabbed them and tried to put them back in her mouth, but Russell was sure he had a good thing and wanted to keep them out of her mouth just as much as she wanted to keep them in. Her hat went one way and her dignity went the other. Finally she was able to outwrestle him and recovered her dentures, if not her poise. I had a seizure and had to hold on to the kitchen door to remain erect. It was one of the silliest scenes I have ever witnessed.
Eventually as Russell matured, he became uncontrollable. He had thrown all the books out of the bookcase, had peed on every record I owned, and the apartment looked as though it had been through a drug raid. It was time to let Russell go. I took him back to the family farm in Illinois in early winter, when his semihibernating instincts would take over. I carried him out to the barn, made him a nest of some hay and left some food there for him. Every couple of hours I would tiptoe through the snow and peek through a crack in the wall to see him all curled up in a ball. I wanted so much to play with him, but I knew I couldn’t. I had a lump in my throat when I turned away.
When spring came and the sap began to run in the trees, Russell had left the security of the barn for whatever destiny promises a raccoon. He returned every once in a while in hopes of finding a treat in his bowl, but later in the spring his sap was running, too. He must have found some irresistible lady raccoon and begun to raise his family, and I never saw him again. I miss him.
27
UNBEKNOWNST TO ME I had been snookered into making a two-picture deal with Darryl Zanuck that would include Viva Zapata! and one other. In those days