Never Get Off The Merry-Go-Round! (Pt 4)

What our friends didn’t understand was that Suzie and I felt we had nothing to lose. 

After all, everything we owned fitted into just three suitcases! 

Suzie’s eyes sparkled with excitement at the idea of America. She liked to travel and see new things. That’s why she became a travel agent. That, and to earn enough money to eat as I’ve explained. She had tremendous curiosity about the world and was remarkably free of emotional tethers to places and things. 

Suzie was a wanderer. A true free spirit. A rock-and-roll angel.

“We’re not waiting for our ship to come in, Nicky,” she’d said a few weeks before, when we told Nick and his wife of our decision to leave New Zealand. “We’re going to swim out to it!” 

We talked it over with them. That’s when I first saw the look from our friends. The look that said you’re crazy to go and try animation in America! Making cartoons? You’re barely eking out a living now, how will you survive the mean streets of New York City? 

In his youth Nick had done some O.E. (Overseas Experience) in the States, so he understood its allure. He and Suzie had worked together for years in the travel business too, so he understood her pretty well. He even understood me to some extent. 

Nick was good with people. 

It was animation that he couldn’t understand. He’d watched me work at it obsessively over the years and never seem to get ahead. Which was true, we weren’t very far ahead, as far as money and things of that nature. But we’d seen the world a bit and done a few things, Suzie and I, so I wasn't concerned about how far ahead or behind we were.

It helps tremendously in life to be young and stupid, sometimes. 

Nick turned from me and embraced Suzie. They were special friends, he and her, she having worked for him from the beginning and helped to grow his travel agency in downtown Onehunga.* 

“Keep the home fires burning, sweetie!” laughed Suzie in he musical voice. “Shame. We’ll be back before you know it.” 

She kissed Nick’s cheek, leaving a smear of lipstick, before adding, “I just want to look at America and take in the sights. It ought to be fun!” 

“Keep in touch, Suzie,” said Nick. “The place won’t be the same without you.”

I could easily believe that. 

Suzie laughed again and Nick couldn’t help but join her. 

Suzie’s laughter was like champagne, bubbly and bright and hard to resist.

I tugged her arm.

“C’mon!” I said and we began to run for gate seven.

*Pronounced "Oh-knee-hun-gah." 

Never Get Off The Merry-Go-Round!

Auckland, NZ, 1987 

“Goodbye,” I said softly, hugging my stepmother.

“Take care Rusty,” she said. “Good luck.” 

I’d never lived under the same roof as my stepmother, my dad married her when I’d already left home, but we were friendly enough.

“Thanks, Jenny,” I answered. “See you in a few years.” 

That’s what I believed, that I’d return to New Zealand after a few years away. We’d done it before a couple of times, my wife Suzie and I. We’d gone off for awhile to Africa in the seventies and Australia in the eighties, but always we’d come back.

If you’ve lived there you’ll know… New Zealand is a difficult place to stay away from. 

Nevertheless most Kiwis in those days went out to see the world. They probably still do. New Zealand being a small country made of islands in the South Pacific ocean, you have to go overseas to go anywhere. 

New Zealanders even had a phrase for it; 

“Getting your O.E.” 

Overseas Experience. 

Now we stood in the Departures Lounge of Auckland International Airport, embracing family and friends before we boarded our plane to go and do it again. 

America this time. 

New York City, where we had chums upon whose couch we could crash. 

I watched Suzie hug my father goodbye. She’d lost her father tragically when she was very young, and I think she loved my dad all the more for it. 

But it wasn’t all lovey-dovey between them, not in the beginning. When I first started going out with Suzie my father was disappointed I’d taken up with a girl so much younger, and while I was still legally married, too. 

He’s quite religious and he hoped that I would return to my first wife and the baby and do the right thing (as he saw it). But I was past all that before I’d even met Suzie. He blamed her anyway, as if she were some Bathsheba who with her sensuous charms was luring me away from the straight and narrow.

“My dad’s religious and sometimes he’s got some crazy ideas,” I said to Suzie when he refused to have anything to do with her. 

“The stupid old fart,” I added with a laugh. 

“Shame,“ she said. Which if you know a South African means almost anything. It could be shame you got fired from your job, shame you won a million in the lottery, shame the baby looks so cute. 

“Oh well, that’s his problem,” she added, and immediately forgot about my dad and his problem. She laughed and said nothing more. She was wise that way and besides, Suzie was never very good at being angry or holding a grudge. 

Turns out my father wasn’t very good at it either, because within a few months his heart softened. All it took was a chance meeting in Albert Park. He and Suzie met by accident in the botanical garden and I suppose, surrounded by all that beauty and believe me the gardens of New Zealand are extremely beautiful, they inadvertently shared a smile or a gesture that said life was too short to stay angry with each other.

I imagine that’s what happened. I know them both pretty well and I can visualize it that way. Suzie has very expressive eyes that have a way of inviting you in… 

I wasn’t there. I was in Milford Sound on a video shoot. 

My father, caught by his good manners, invited Suzie to tea in the cafe a few steps away by the fern garden. 

“We talked and talked,” said Suzie to me on the telephone that night. “Why didn’t you tell me your dad was such a sweetie?”

“Sweetie?” I asked. “My dad?”

She must have got the wrong dad, I figured. 

But no, it was really him. He called me that night also. 

“Why didn’t you tell me about her, son?” he asked me. “She’s terrific!

To be continued...

Goodbye Again

Auckland, New Zealand

 1987

   “Goodbye,” I said. “See you in a few years.” 

   That’s what I believed, that I’d return to New Zealand after a few years away. We’d done it previously a couple of times, Suzie and I, left New Zealand and gone off to live in Africa (1976-77) and Australia (1981-82) for a few years, then come back. Most young Kiwis* in those days went out to see the world, they probably still do. New Zealand being a country made up of islands surrounded by the South Pacific ocean, you have to go overseas to go anywhere. 

   As usual, Kiwis had a phrase for it, “Getting your O.E.” for Overseas Experience. 

   Now we stood in the Departures Lounge of Auckland International Airport, embracing friends before we boarded our plane to go and do it again. America this time. New York City, where we had friends upon whose couch we could crash. 

   I’d known and loved Suzie for a dozen years by then. I met her when she was eighteen, barely more than a kid. Now she was a fashion model, clothes designer and travel agent. 

   I was a film animator. I made TV commercials selling toilet bowl cleaners and stuff like that.  

   Everything we owned was at our feet, packed into three suitcases. 

   Proving, I suppose, that for most of us artists, it really is art for art’s sake in this material world. 

   “Good luck, mate,” Nick said somberly as he gripped my hand. He wore a serious expression, which gave his face an unnatural look. He wasn’t usually so grave. Looking at him, I was more than ever convinced he believed Suzie and I had made a horrible mistake and were doomed to failure in America, where we’d end up like every artist that ever was or ever will be ends up, starving to death in our freezing rat infested hovel with bill collectors banging at the door! To lie on a filthy mattress, too weak from hunger to rise, and stare sepulchrally with feverish eyes and bitter irony at the unsold masterpieces (painted in my own blood) hanging on the damp, decaying walls— and with my last painful breath receive the cruel enlightenment to look back on my life and wonder; 

   “Where did I go wrong?”

   What our friends didn’t understand was that Suzie and I felt we had nothing to lose. 

   After all, everything we owned fitted into three suitcases.

   Suzie’s eyes sparkled with excitement at the idea of America. She liked to travel. Even before I'd met her, she'd been around the world a bit. She had tremendous curiosity and was remarkably free of emotional tethers to places and things. What Suzie loved was people. 

   She was unresisting to change, too. In fact, she liked change. 

  “We’re not waiting for our ship to come in, Nicky,” she’d said a few weeks before, when we told Nick and his wife of our decision to leave New Zealand. “We’re going to swim out to it!” We talked it over over dinner. That’s when I first saw the look from our friends. The look that said you’re crazy to go and try animation in America! Making cartoons? You’re barely eking out a living now, here in Godzone,** how will you survive the mean streets of New York City? 

   In his youth Nick had done some O.E. in the States, so he understood its allure. He and Suzie had worked together for years too, so he understood her pretty well. He even understood me pretty well. Nick was good with people. It was animation that he couldn’t understand. He’d watched me work at it obsessively over the years and never seem to get ahead. Which was true, we weren’t very far ahead, as far as money and things of that nature. But I found making animated films absolutely fascinating and couldn't dream of doing anything else. 

   Besides, we’d seen the world a bit and done a few things, Suzie and I, so I wasn't concerned about how far ahead or behind we were. 

   Nick turned from me and embraced Suzie. They were special friends, he and her, she having worked for him from before the beginning and helped to grow his travel agency in downtown Onehunga.*** After his somber best wishes to me, Nick looked close to tears as he parted from Suzie.

   “Keep the home fires burning, dahling!” laughed Suzie in her sweet, musical voice. She kissed Nick’s cheek, leaving a smear of red lipstick, before adding, “I just want to have a look around America and take in the sights. It ought to be fun!” Suzie had a beautiful accent, a singsong lilt that sounded more French than South African. 

   “Keep in touch, Suzie,” he answered. “The place won’t be the same without you.” 

   To be continued…

* A Kiwi is a flightless bird, New Zealand's national symbol and what a New Zealander is called.

** Kiwi slang for New Zealand.

*** Pronounced, for your amusement, "Oh-knee-hung-ah." A suburb of Auckland.