“Wait, wait, wait,” cried John Wayne as he chased after her. He was not a young man. He wondered if he could possibly catch her. But she was a child of the river and pine tree, of wild grass and mountain. She understood gravity in a different way and, therefore, tripped in the rough sands of the desert. She fell face first into the red dirt and waited for John Wayne to catch and hurt her. Isn’t that what he had always done? Wasn’t he the man who killed Indians?
“Etta, Etta.” He kneeled beside her. He stroked her long black hair. She flinched and pushed him away.
“Go away, go away, John Wayne,” she cried out.
“Oh, Etta, I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I couldn’t hurt you. I love you.”
“But you can’t love me. You don’t even know me.”
John Wayne wept.
There, in Navajo Monument Valley, John Wayne wept. His tears fell to the sand and flooded the desert.
“Nobody knows me,” he cried. “Nobody knows me.”
He was so afraid! Etta was shocked into silence. This was the great John Wayne and he was afraid.
“But, but, but,” Etta stammered. “But you’re a star.”
“John Wayne is the star. I’m Marion, I’m just Marion Morrison.”
She held him for a good long time.
Q: I can’t believe this. Are you telling me the truth?
A: Yes, as far as I can remember it.
Q: This is not a lie, one of those good lies you were talking about?
A: Spencer, I was fooling you. There’s no such thing as a good lie.
Q: Bad lies, good lies, whatever. Just tell me the truth. Did you really lose your virginity to John Wayne?
(seven seconds of silence)
A: He was afraid of horses, did you know that?
Q: John Wayne was afraid of horses? That’s completely implausible. I mean, I’d sooner believe that you slept with him. We’re talking about John Wayne here.
A: When he was seven years old, a horse kicked him in the head. He was in a coma for nearly three months. Everybody thought he was going to die. In the hospital, his mother brought in a Catholic priest to baptize him. His father brought in a Presbyterian priest for last rites. They thought he was going to die. They were sure he was going to die.
Q: I don’t recall reading any of this about John Wayne. Kicked in the head by a horse? That must be urban legend.
A: He showed me the scar. Just behind his right ear. About five inches long. They hid it with makeup. The horse’s name was Rooster. He liked me to kiss it whenever we made love.
Q: Wait, wait, wait, he liked you to kiss the horse?
A: Oh, no, no, no, silly. He liked me to kiss his scar. He said it was really sensitive, still, after all those years. He was really a sensitive man, you know? He knew how to cry. He cried every time we made love. Well, this is really embarrassing, but he cried every time he had, every time, he, well, you know, had an orgasm.
Q: Wait, wait, wait, what are you telling me? How many times did you make love?
A: Most every night during the filming of the movie. Except for those nights when his wife and kids came to visit.
Q: So, hold on here, let me get my head around this. Not only were you having sex with John Wayne, you were also having an affair with him?
A: I’m not proud of that particular nature of our relationship, but yes, John Wayne was a married man.
In Navajo Monument Valley, during a long day of filming, John Wayne stepped into the makeup trailer for a touch-up and discovered his sons happily covering their faces with lipstick and mascara.
“Well, hello there,” John Wayne said to his sons.
They were petrified, afraid of this large man, this male.
“Are you having fun?” the Duke asked his sons.
They didn’t know how to answer. If they said no, they’d be lying, and their father always knew when they were lying. If they said yes, well, then, that could mean all sorts of things, and all of them were bad.
“Are you having fun?” he asked again. His face revealed nothing, his thin mouth was closed tight, his teeth were hidden behind that weathered face.
The eldest son cried, so the youngest son decided to join him.
“Wait, wait, wait,” said John Wayne. “What’s with all of the tears?”
“You hate us,” cried the oldest boy.
“Don’t hate me, don’t hate me,” cried the youngest boy.
John Wayne scooped up his boys. He set his big cowboy hat on the youngest boy’s head.
“I don’t hate you, I could never hate you,” said John Wayne. “What makes you think I hate you?”
“Because we’re girls,” wailed the boys.
John Wayne held his sons and stroked their hair.
“Oh, there, there, you’re not girls, you’re not girls,” said the father. “What makes you think you’re girls?”
“Because we’re putting on lipstick,” said the youngest.
John Wayne laughed.
“Oh, sons, you’re just engaging in some harmless gender play. Some sexual experimentation. Every boy does this kind of thing. Every man likes to pretend he’s a woman now and again. It’s very healthy.”
“Daddy,” said the oldest. “Do you dress up like a woman?”
“Well, I don’t put on a dress or anything. But I often close my eyes and try to put myself into a woman’s shoes. I try to think like a woman. I try to embrace the feminine in myself. Do you know what I mean?”
“No,” said the boys.
“Well, sons, let me tell you the honest truth. There’s really not that much difference between men and women. In all things, intelligence, passion, hope, dreams, strength, men and women are pretty much equals. I mean, gender is mostly a social construction. After all, males and females share about ninety-nine percent of the same genetic material. So, given that, how could we really be that much different? In fact, we’re all so much alike that every woman must have some masculine inside of her and every man must have feminine inside of him. You just ain’t a whole person otherwise.”
“Daddy!” shouted the boys. They were shocked. “That’s not what you said before when you were on the radio and television.”
“Boys, I know. I know. I have a public image to maintain. But that’s not who I really am. I may act like a cowboy, I might pretend to be a cowboy, but I am not a cowboy in real life, do you understand?”
“I think so,” said the oldest son. “Is it like in school, when you’re supposed to be listening to the teacher, but you’re only pretending to listen so you don’t get in trouble?”
John Wayne smiled.
“Yes, yes, it’s something like that,” he said to his sons. “Now, let me teach you a little something about the birds and bees. If you want to make a woman happy, really happy, there’s only one thing you got to do.”
“What, Daddy, what?”
“Listen to her stories.”
Q: So, what happened, I mean, what did you do when his wife and sons came to visit?
A: I felt bad, bad, bad. That John Wayne, he was a good father and a good husband, too. I mean, he was cheating on them, that’s for sure, but he wasn’t going to leave them. No way. All the time he and I were together, he just kept telling me the same thing. “I ain’t leaving them,” he’d say. “I ain’t leaving them. I am a good man, and a good man ain’t a good man without a good family.”
Q: But how do you reconcile that? How did he reconcile that? How can a man claim to love his wife and children if he’s sleeping, if he’s in love with another woman?
A: Are you married, Spencer?
Q: No.
A: Kids?
Q: No.
A: Then you don’t really understand why John Wayne fell in love with me or why he left me, do you?