Sidney Sheldon - A Stranger in the Mirror

One afternoon, when Toby was twelve years old, Mrs. Durkin, the neighborhood gossip, came to visit them. Mrs. Durkin was a bony-faced woman with black, darting eyes and a tongue that was never still. When she departed, Toby did an imitation of her that had his mother roaring with laughter. It seemed to Toby that it was the first time he had ever heard her laugh. From that moment on, Toby looked for ways to entertain her. He would do devastating imitations of customers who came into the butcher shop and of teachers and schoolmates, and his mother would go into gales of laughter.

Toby had finally discovered a way to win his mother’s approval.

He tried out for a school play, No Account David , and was given the lead. On the opening night, his mother sat in the front row and applauded her son’s success. It was at that moment that Frieda knew how God’s promise was going to come true.

It was the early 1930’s, the beginning of the Depression, and movie theaters all over the country were trying every conceivable stratagem to fill their empty seats. They gave away dishes and radios, and had keno nights and bingo nights, the hired organists to accompany the bouncing ball while the audience sang along.

And they held amateur contests. Frieda would carefully check the theatrical section of the newspaper to see where contests were taking place. Then she would take Toby there and sit in the audience while he did his imitations of Al Jolson and James Cagney and Eddie Cantor and yell out, “ Mein Himmel! What a talented boy!” Toby nearly always won first prize.

He had grown taller, but he was still thin, an earnest child with guileless, bright blue eyes set in the face of a cherub. One looked at him and instantly thought: innocence . When people saw Toby they wanted to put their arms around him and hug him and protect him from Life. They loved him and on stage they applauded him. For the first time Toby understood what he was destined to be; he was going to be a star, for his mother first, and God second.

Toby’s libido began to stir when he was fifteen. He would masturbate in the bathroom, the one place he was assured of privacy, but that was not enough. He decided he needed a girl.

One evening, Clara Connors, the married sister of a classmate, drove Toby home from an errand he was doing for his mother. Clara was a pretty blonde with large breasts, and as Toby sat next to her, he began to get an erection. Nervously, he inched his hand across to her lap and began to fumble under her skirt, ready to withdraw instantly if she screamed. Clara was more amused than angry, but when Toby pulled out his penis and she saw the size of it, she invited him to her house the following afternoon and initiated Toby into the joys of sexual intercourse. It was a fantastic experience. Instead of a soapy hand, Toby had found a soft, warm receptacle that throbbed and grabbed at his penis. Clara’s moans and screams made him grow hard again and again, so that he had orgasm after orgasm without ever leaving the warm, wet nest. The size of his penis had always been a source of secret shame to Toby. Now it had suddenly become his glory. Clara could not keep this phenomenon to herself, and soon Toby found himself servicing half a dozen married women in the neighborhood.

During the next two years, Toby managed to deflower nearly half the girls in his class. Some of Toby’s classmates were football heroes, or better looking than he, or rich—but where they failed, Toby succeeded. He was the funniest, cutest thing the girls had ever seen, and it was impossible to say no to that innocent face and those wistful blue eyes.

In Toby’s senior year in high school, when he was eighteen, he was summoned to the principal’s office. In the room were Toby’s mother, grim-faced, a sobbing sixteen-year-old Catholic girl named Eileen Henegan and her father, a uniformed police sergeant. The moment Toby entered the room, he knew he was in deep trouble.

“I’ll come right to the point, Toby,” the principal said. “Eileen is pregnant. She says you’re the father of her child. Have you had a physical relationship with her?”

Toby’s mouth suddenly went dry. All he could think of was how much Eileen had enjoyed it, how she had moaned and begged for more. And now this.

“Answer him, you little son of a bitch!” Eileen’s father bellowed. “Did you touch my daughter?”

Toby sneaked a look at his mother. That she was here to witness his shame upset him more than anything else. He had let her down, disgraced her. She would be repelled by his behavior. Toby resolved that if he ever got out of this, if God would only help him this once and perform some kind of miracle, he would never touch another girl as long as he lived. He would go straight to a doctor and have himself castrated, so that he would never even think about sex again, and…

“Toby…” His mother was speaking, her voice stern and cold. “Did you go to bed with this girl?”

Toby swallowed, took a deep breath and mumbled, “Yes, Mother.”

“Then you will marry her.” There was finality in her tone. She looked at the sobbing, puffy-eyed girl. “Is that what you want?”

“Y-yes,” Eileen cried. “I love Toby.” She turned to Toby. “They made me tell. I didn’t want to give them your name.”

Her father, the police sergeant, announced to the room at large, “My daughter’s only sixteen. It’s statutory rape. He could be sent to jail for the rest of his miserable life. But if he’s going to marry her…”

They all turned to look at Toby. He swallowed again and said, “Yes, sir. I—I’m sorry it happened.”

During the silent ride home with his mother, Toby sat at her side, miserable, knowing how much he had hurt her. Now he would have to find a job to support Eileen and the child. He would probably have to go to work in the butcher shop and forget his dreams, all his plans for the future. When they reached the house, his mother said to him, “Come upstairs.”

Toby followed her to his room, steeling himself for a lecture. As he watched, she took out a suitcase and began packing his clothes. Toby stared at her, puzzled. “What are you doing, Mama?”

“Me? I’m not doing anything. You are. You’re going away from here.”

She stopped and turned to face him. “Did you think I was going to let you throw your life away on that nothing of a girl? So you took her to bed and she’s going to have a baby. That proves two things—that you’re human, and she’s stupid! Oh, no—no one traps my son into marriage. God meant you to be a big man, Toby. You’ll go to New York, and when you’re a famous star, you’ll send for me.”

He blinked back tears and flew into her arms, and she cradled him in her enormous bosom. Toby suddenly felt lost and frightened at the thought of leaving her. And yet, there was an excitement within him, the exhilaration of embarking on a new life. He was going to be in Show Business. He was going to be a star; he was going to be famous.

His mother had said so.

2

In 1939, New York City was a mecca for the theater. The Depression was over. President Franklin Roosevelt had promised that there was nothing to fear but fear itself, that America would be the most prosperous nation on earth, and so it was. Everyone had money to spend. There were thirty shows playing on Broadway, and all of them seemed to be hits.

Toby arrived in New York with a hundred dollars his mother had given him. Toby knew he was going to be rich and famous. He would send for his mother and they would live in a beautiful penthouse and she would come to the theater every night to watch the audience applaud him. In the meantime, he had to find a job. He went to the stage doors of all the Broadway theaters and told them about the amateur contests he had won and how talented he was. They threw him out. During the weeks that Toby hunted for a job, he sneaked into theaters and nightclubs and watched the top performers work, particularly the comedians. He saw Ben Blue and Joe E. Lewis and Frank Fay. Toby knew that one day he would be better than all of them.