Call Me Anna: The Autobiography of Patty Duke Read Free Page A

wanted it. I remember a strong, strong attraction, almost a physical need to be close to him when he was there, and the longing when he was gone. And my envy of little Pamela who lived nextdoor because she had a great dad who would take us places. I always felt like the poor relation.
    And then there was the smell of Camels. And Old Spice. One of my most exact memories is sitting on the kitchen floor early one morning and going through my father’s duffel bag. I find this wooden thing and this good-smelling stuff and I’m playing with it while my parents are arguing at the front door. My mother says, “What the hell are you doing here?” And he says, “I live here.” She says, “You’ve been back for three days now, you don’t see fit to come home, you don’t live here anymore.” I’m sitting on the floor with this wooden soap dish that has a top on it, and he picks up his duffel bag and he leaves and I’ve got the dish. I don’t remember him saying good-bye to me or anything, just leaving in a huff. That little wooden dish, you can imagine what a treasure it was to me. And very shortly after, in a rage, my mother threw it away. I used to blame her, but how can you? It wasn’t malicious, just the act of a desperate woman.
    The other smell I remember is booze. It smelled embarrassing. I intuitively knew it meant trouble. It conjured up that terrible dilemma of wanting him around but not wanting him around, because if he was there, he was going to drink, and if he drank, there was going to be trouble.
    A job that my sister or brother usually handled that fell to me once after Daddy had moved out was meeting him at a bar somewhere and getting ten dollars to bring home. It was summertime, all the kids were in the street, and two of my friends came up and said, “Where ya goin’? We’ll walk ya.” I always wanted somebody to walk me—in broad daylight I was scared of being by myself—but this time I made up lie after lie about why they couldn’t. I went blocks out of my way so they wouldn’t know where I was going, and I kept looking behind me to make sure they weren’t there.
    The bar was on Third Avenue and Thirty-first Street and I’d gotten strict instructions from my very angry mother that I wasn’t allowed to go in. I had to tap on the window and let him know I was there. It took a while for him to turn around, but others did, too, they began waving, and finally his attention was diverted. We hadn’t seen each other for along time, so when he came out he wanted to hug me, but I wouldn’t let him. He smelled of booze. I took the ten dollars and went back the way I’d come. I’ve felt guilty and ashamed about that from that day to this because I think that’s the last time I saw him on his feet, the last time I could’ve had a hug. If only he knew how important he was to me. But I don’t think he did, I don’t think he was able to get outside of all that chaos he was in, to notice how much he meant.
    My father’s drinking has had an effect on us all. My brother, Ray, who had to be brought over from his army post in Germany to identify my father’s body when he died about ten years later, hasn’t drunk at all since then. Not a drop. With me, part of the legacy is an awareness that I’m an addictive personality so I better keep on my toes. I drink too much coffee, smoke too many cigarettes, and if I’d ever gotten involved in drugs, I would have ended up seriously addicted or dead. But because of my dad I have a built-in censor that says, “No, I don’t think you should be doing this.” What I’d seen firsthand wouldn’t allow it.
    Yet the fact that I come from a very long line of alcoholics means that I have had some problems with liquor. I have gone through periods of drinking very heavily, never while I’m working, but either in the privacy of my own home or at parties. And when I drink, my personality is sometimes altered to such an extent as to be destructive or disruptive. I