Michelle Bitting: Drive

~ Joan, Age 14, Los Angeles, 1931

I have to get Mama to the Warner Brothers gate by 6:30 sharp this morning or Dolph the cranky A.D. will yell at us again. That means two scoops of McCann’s Steel Oats in a pan of simmering cream at 4:30 am, sliced strawberries and a side dish of brown sugar. Maxwell House pot percolating, ready to pop its perky lid before the sun comes up and the neighborhood crows land their scraggly umbrella selves on the lawn, lurking about like crime detectives looking to solve a murder. Which are mine and Mama’s favorite kind of stories. The radiator heat has come on, warming my iced fingers and toes. The creamy coffee odor of stewing beans and oats feels cozy even as I watch those wicked birds in their fat black coats picking at gray worms wriggling up like fingers from the underworld of mud and dew-slick grass. I’m not sure why that came into my head. Maybe because lately, we’re listening to a lot of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle recordings on the radio. We love them, though the broadcast actors aren’t as good as Mama’s cousin Basil could be. Whenever he comes by the house, he and Mama go on about our mutual affection for Sherlock stories. Also, what a perfect Holmes our Basil would make. I know he’s my cousin, but truth is, I have a horrible crush on him. Whenever I’m done with my homework on set, which is where I mostly take my schooling these days, I like to write stories with the famous sleuth as my protagonist. It’s easy to get lost in the writing when I’m imagining my fine cousin (okay, third cousin once removed) so brilliant and handsome in his tweeds and smelling faintly of cherry wood cigars and Egyptian musk oil. But I’m dreaming again, and I can hear Mama in the bathroom running a quick tub to soften her nerves and muscles before the long workday ahead. I must remember to shut the heat off before we go since we’ll be out all day, even though Mama makes good money now she’s filming so many pictures and they’re all talkies which I much prefer. She’s going to buy us a new house not far from here. One with stairs and beautiful white stone arches and brick-colored roof tiles in the style of Spanish Mediterranean. The kitchen is larger, too, so we won’t be cramped, and I can maneuver from stove to pantry to alcove table where we eat most often these days instead of the dining room that feels cold and empty and a little haunted ever since Papa moved out. We’ll be able to have a freezer in the pantry and fill it up with bacon and lamb racks and sausages that Julio and his dad deliver each week. I’m not much of a cook, but the few dishes I’ve learned since Papa left to hang out with Tom Ince’s widow I’m pretty good at. I heard mother tell Ms. Garbo on the telephone about Papa and Mrs. Ince when she thought I was already asleep. I don’t know why that man has to stir the scandal pot every chance he gets– Mama moaned, and then something like You’d think he’d care more about Joan, his reputation— mine! I hate it when they bring me into arguments. Makes me feel dirty inside but like it’s somebody else’s body. I bought him the house on Marquette in that beautiful canyon, dammit, so he’d be near Joan. She sees him whenever she wants– Mama added, but then stopped short and sighed a bunch of times like letting go of a great weight. I figure Ms. Garbo found words that had a balm effect on Mama like when she rubs minty Vicks into my chest if my bronchitis flares up. I don’t know what to say about Papa. He’s mostly fun when he has time to play Backgammon with me and go for walks picking wildflowers in Temescal. We love it there after it rains when the creek beds overflow and there are actual waterfalls! Sometimes he’s too busy though and has a lot of “special dates.” Those evenings I have to hang out with boring old Aunt Mary who is not really my aunt but comes over so I can watch her needlepoint and eat all of Papa’s Godiva chocolates. Sorry, but such a lazy bore. Reminds me of a pig with her pink hairnet and the way she always has her face shoved into a box of cocoa truffles, rooting around so close to her nostril holes, it’s like she’s going to snort them. Then comes the third degree— her staring at me over her spectacles— teeth all chocolaty, her knobby knuckles pressing a needle through stiff mesh, one weird pointer finger capped with a gold thimble she says is “Edwardian” as if anyone cares. It makes me think of a bullet. And the way she points it for emphasis— some kind of bony crooked gun. She’s as bad as that nosy costume lady Sarah Beasley and Dolph whispering to each other on set, huddled in shady corners like hungry mice. They’re all obsessed— about Papa and Mrs. Ince and the whole yacht scandal with Mr. Hearst and Mr. Chaplin and some lady called Marion even though it was proven Tom Ince had a heart attack. It was not a murder! Ugh!

People are so rude. Stupid and predictable, says Papa. I’d agree except he’s never been very faithful to Mama so I’m not sure what to think anymore. Anyway, now I’m responsible for driving Mama to the studio because she’s too short to reach the pedals of the Packard. They even issued me an early driver’s license after mother’s agent Theo and a studio lawyer fought the bureau downtown. I had to get dressed up in my linen frock with sunflower shaped polka dots, white gloves, and shiny red leather flats. We went to fill out a pile of paperwork downtown, and I had to answer too many questions in a small hot office that smelled like moth balls and sour cheese. You do know that driving in Los Angeles is serious business, young lady? Yes! I said, trying not to roll my eyes. But when I told them about Mama— who she was and why she badly needs me to drive her, they changed their tune quick as a heartbeat because All Quiet on the WesternFront is one of their favorites, apparently, and how exciting she’s making a new picture with James Cagney who’s rumored to be the next big thing. Then the one with a rumpled blue shirt who’d been smoking the entire time opened a drawer and offered me some chalky mints from a turquoise tin, but I said No, thanks, those kind burn my tongue. Last thing they asked: Who taught you about vehicular navigation in the first place? So I told them how last year Papa took me up to the conference grounds in Temescal Canyon and that’s where I learned to drive the Packard. He was so patient with me that day, Papa was. Took me to Thelma’s Todd’s Café for Crepes Suzette after, and Ms. Todd even came from the kitchen in her lacy apron and scarlet red mouth and leaned close over Papa’s shoulder to light the Grand Marnier on fire for us at the table. She smelled like Chicken Divan and the night blooming Jasmine outside Papa’s house on Marquette Street. I loved learning about not flooding the engine— how to time the clutch and use the mirrors. So many! It’s hard to know what you’re looking at and how far away everything really is. And the car is very long but very beautiful and deep blue like the Pacific Ocean at the end of a clear October day. And I do love driving Mama in it now along the coast highway, cranking the windows, folding the top down so the stiff fishy breeze stings our noses and make our curls fly off the backs of our necks. It feels kind of royal and sometimes a little sad— alone and adrift like that— as queens I’ve seen look to be in magazines and pictures. But I guess we’re not so worried about money anymore. At least there’s that.

Copyright 2026 Michelle Bitting. From a hybrid historical novel-in-progress  Beryl: The Theatrical Pursuit of a Family and All That Entails.

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Author’s Note: Joan is my grandmother. While she was groomed to go into show business by her screen and stage actor parents (Holmes (Horace) Herbert and Beryl Mercer), she did not end up going that direction as an adult. In my chapter writings and poems and flash prose, I trace her path, imagining into many of the places and people she was around in Hollywood as the daughter of celebrity character actors in the early part of the 20th century. 

Beryl is Beryl Mercer, my great grandmother. A very celebrated character actor of London stages in the Victorian era and then on Broadway in NYC and eventually in Hollywood. She set up home and raised Joan in Pacific Palisades back when it was mostly Lima bean fields. The films referenced are All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) in which she played Lew Ayres’s mother, famously, and then Public Enemy with James Cagney where again she played the mother. This was Cagney’s break out film. I’m pasting some stills below. 

The Packard was the 1929 model, since that is when Beryl was able to move Joan from the apartment in Hollywood out to the Palisades when she’d started making movies regularly. Holmes (whose real name was Horace but he changed it to Holmes), moved out to the Palisades eventually as well. They were estranged (he liked to party and cavort and spend Beryl’s dough) but she set him up close by so he’d be near their daughter Joan, my grandmother. He made a ton of films as well but was never as famous as her.

Beryl Mercer is the reason why my family is in the Palisades today — although so much of it burned of course. 

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