Marilyn: A Biography by Norman Mailer

gone back to the numb
center of that psychic ship she sailed without a rudder. Love they
would make and love he would feel; but it was love in the middle of
her role, and may have reached no further into her than an actor’s
simulation, a ride on a horse where finally she dismounts, the
horse is gone, the ride is over. It is not a lack of grace that
offers sexual problems when actors make love but the lack of an
identity to give up to the act.
    Meanwhile, her days as a housewife are
descending into a long afternoon pall. Small surprise. She listens
to the radio all day, goes on visits to Ana Lower, and serves Jim
coffee once with salt, not a pinch but a spoonful, because she read
somewhere that it brought out the taste. Highballs are offered to
friends he invites in but appear on the table with five inches of
whisky over the ice, and no water. Fish she tries to serve raw,
from a picture of Japanese sashimi ; of course they have a
fight. Zolotow has it end by the husband throwing her into the
shower, and because she is wearing a shrinkproof dress, they laugh.
On Sunday they go to the Sherman Oaks Christian Science church.
They do not smoke and not often do they drink. When they move to
Van Nuys, there is a bath and she forms the habit of taking
mind-meandering soaks in the tub — in later years she will keep
newspapermen and studios waiting hours while she continues to
soak.
     
    Sometimes on an oppressively hot day she
would throw together an improvised picnic lunch — a couple of cold
franks, a tomato, half a lettuce, and take a bus all the way to
Santa Monica and “Muscle Beach.” Jim had shown her where it was one
Sunday. He believed in keeping fit and did some calisthenics every
day, but told her “these muscle boys have gone around the bend.”
When one of the young men tried to make conversation, she raised
her hand with her wedding band, then smiled, just to show there
were no hard feelings.
     
    Of course this has to be Dougherty’s memory
of what she told him after coming back from such a day, and it is
perfectly possible she had a secret flirtation, or the idea of one.
But we may as well accept her story as true, for it is likely she
would have been transfixed by the narcissism of the weight lifters.
Such shamelessness at slaving openly for one’s own beauty had to
suggest possibilities for herself.
    Worried most likely about her restlessness,
Dougherty bought a collie, Muggsie, the first dog she had dared to
own since Tippy. When his parents moved into a bigger home, the
young couple gave up their own bungalow and moved into the vacated
apartment which was large enough to keep her cleaning all day. She
was also taking funds of care of Muggsie. Two baths a week went to
the dog, and it is not hard to picture her grooming him by the
hour.
    Uneasy at being out of uniform, however, Jim
Dougherty joined the Maritime Service and they moved to a training
base on Catalina Island where he became a physical instructor. It
is like early adolescence all over again. She is one of the few
women on the base. When she goes out for a walk, it is a theatrical
happening. Men are on their knees along these service streets
pretending to talk to Muggsie. The tight sweaters come back on her
and the tight skirts, the shorts and the small bathing suits. She
takes lessons once a week in weight lifting with little dumbbells.
Her plumped breasts bounce like manifests of the great here! and
now! and when she bends over, our view is into the Vale! She is
still that classic American girl who will attract all men and yet
have all her close relations with older women: Della, Ida, Gladys,
Grace, the Directress of the Home, Ana Lower — it is the beginning
of a long line. Dougherty does not begin to know where his real
trouble exists. He is tempted to scold her — this dress too short,
that lipstick too bright — but keeps silent. Of course, their sex,
as he will hint later, is at its peak on Catalina — it could not
fail to be when she