Death and Winnie the Pooh

Is it actually funny how a bear likes honey? Not so much.
I never have acne, my voice changes without incident, and body hair appears at normal intervals in a not-unattractive way. But at fourteen I still have braces, which I think look incredibly stupid when I am dressed and made-up to be a singing bear.

The version I'm starring in of "Winnie the Pooh" is one of the worst shows I will ever do. The costume is uncomfortable and the director makes me wear a dance belt after I go on one night with a visible erection caused by a member of the backstage crew groping me as I wait in the dark to go on. I supposed it is my fault for encouraging it.

A few weeks before we open I want to get out of a few rehearsals. I tell the director my father, Adam, is flying us to Paris for the weekend and has insisted I go. This is not true. He does actually fly a group of friends to have dinner at Maxim's in Paris at some point, but I am not among the guests, as he and I are enemies at this point. By the time I am Winnie I barely see the Naked Dad at all. The year or two before my singing bear act my father is in South Africa trying to shoot a movie that is never completed called "Point of Departure." I vaguely remember it having something to do with a person of color pretending to be white - you know, like the slutty daughter of Lana Turner's maid in "Imitation of Life," a character played by the Oscar-nominated Susan Kohner, who will go on to give birth to Chris and Paul Weitz, the brothers who will hit it big with "American Pie" before broadening out to making really groovy movies for grown-ups. This is a chain of facts I find fascinating for no apparent reason.

The idea of saying Adam is flying us to Paris comes to me because I do occasionally admire my father's style, and I often use stories about my colorful upbringing to give the false impression of wealth to new acquaintances. I am in Austin living an extremely middle-class life with Mom and my step-father, David, waiting tables at Swenson's after school, and working at The Gap, where I have perfected a means of pocketing money when customers pay for their purchases in cash. Between that and my tip money I do okay. I have to pay for gas and cigarettes somehow. As David later confirms, I never appear to others to be troubled or rebellious. My grades are terrific, I am the king of the extracurricular activity, I work, and faithfully do my chores - in fact, I am far more fastidious about the state of our house than Mom or David ever is.

Listen children and gather round: Succeed spectacularly at the things that impress adults and you can get away with murder. Drugs, sex, shoplifting, "Rocky Horror," or whatever. I never get caught, not once, not even during the several years when I shoplift with the determination of Winona Ryder, successfully making off with suits, shoes, music, small appliances, and so much cheap jewelry I don't know where to keep it all. I bring this same sense of determination to every aspect of my life, and will never be the sort of person who shirks responsibility. If I say I will do something, I do it. Always; whether a school assignment, a favor for someone, or an unpleasant sexual act. It probably has something to do with wanting to be in control and right all the time. There can be no obstacles to my accomplishment. I must never be unable to perform or forget an obligation.

So getting out of "Winnie the Pooh" rehearsals by means of a pretended Paris weekend is a very unusual thing for me to do, and the jig is potentially up when the same weekend I am supposedly in Paris, my brother Gary dies in a head-on collision.