him and there were tears in his eyes, he tried to laugh it off but I was sure of the hurt I saw on his face. It began to snow and I was caught between the luminous beauty of the night and the sadness in John’s dazzling blue eyes.
We returned to the hotel to find a thoughtful concierge laying a fire in the fireplace in our room. When it was blazing it cast an amber glow as it warmed the air. We wrapped ourselves in the impossibly soft hotel robes and ordered a bottle of cognac, then sprawled on the rug in front of the fire to enjoy our drinks and exchange thoughts on the day.
“What happened, buddy?” I asked. “You frightened me earlier, the look in your eyes.”
“It was so beautiful up there,” he started, “it reminded me of how the water looked at night off the back of the ship when I was in the Navy. Those memories are good and bad, I didn’t mind being in the service but I was a kid, just seventeen and I missed my family like crazy.”
He poured himself another glass of cognac, lay back and told me the story of his childhood.
He was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania; just six months after his parents were married. His mother was from a well-off Bucks County family and his father was from generations of dirt-poor Kentucky coalminers. His parents met when his father, an aspiring actor, was touring with the road company of Barefoot in the Park . His dad was the understudy for the Robert Redford part and his mother had a thing for Redford, or anyone associated with him. They first met in the alley by the stage door entrance. The arrogant Kentuckian and the ingénue from Pennsylvania fell in love in short order. Marriage and a baby followed, along with a move to Los Angeles. His father took whatever bit parts he was offered and his mother did clerical work at a movie studio. His father’s career went nowhere and this he blamed on the fact that he was strapped with a wife and child. His reasoning was that he was forced to take any part, good or bad, to support his new family. If he’d been out on his own he could’ve been more selective, he could’ve chosen better roles. The truth was he was never offered any. He wasn’t, in fact, a very good actor. He still loved his wife, was still attracted to her fresh-faced beauty, it was the kid who became the scapegoat. John was the reason for his failure, the source of his resentment.
When John was ten years old his father gave up on acting and life in L.A. He took a menial but steady job at a factory outside Milwaukee.
“Dumb jackass!” John cursed his father’s choice, “He could’ve taken a boring job anywhere, he’d been in the Navy for Christ sake, he’d been all over the world. But where did he settle down, choose to settle down? Wisconsin! I can’t even describe winter in Wisconsin, I mean C-O-L-D. Colder than a well digger’s ass and that dumb son of a bitch was a well digger’s kid straight out of, “Oh by the way, your grandparents are first cousins” Kentucky. The motherfucker was the grandson and great grandson of coal miners. Who knows how many proud generations of Foster men crawled into those dark ass mines and then died of black lung disease? But Ben Foster was going to make a difference. He got out of Kentucky and made it all the way to California. He got a tan and some bit parts and extra work in films and TV. But after ten years my mom was getting more attention from the studio boss where she worked and he wasn’t even close to hitting the big time. So he not only gave up on acting, he decide we would leave California. And not for sunny Arizona or Florida but straight to middle of the road, middle fucking America, cold-nine-tenths-of-the-year upper Midwest.”
He was breathing hard, fists clenched, blue eyes as icy as the state he was describing. He looked at me imploringly, “Why did my mom go with him? We loved L.A. and she was secretary to the head of the TV studio shooting the Dukes of Hazzard. I hate my father, hate him now
We returned to the hotel to find a thoughtful concierge laying a fire in the fireplace in our room. When it was blazing it cast an amber glow as it warmed the air. We wrapped ourselves in the impossibly soft hotel robes and ordered a bottle of cognac, then sprawled on the rug in front of the fire to enjoy our drinks and exchange thoughts on the day.
“What happened, buddy?” I asked. “You frightened me earlier, the look in your eyes.”
“It was so beautiful up there,” he started, “it reminded me of how the water looked at night off the back of the ship when I was in the Navy. Those memories are good and bad, I didn’t mind being in the service but I was a kid, just seventeen and I missed my family like crazy.”
He poured himself another glass of cognac, lay back and told me the story of his childhood.
He was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania; just six months after his parents were married. His mother was from a well-off Bucks County family and his father was from generations of dirt-poor Kentucky coalminers. His parents met when his father, an aspiring actor, was touring with the road company of Barefoot in the Park . His dad was the understudy for the Robert Redford part and his mother had a thing for Redford, or anyone associated with him. They first met in the alley by the stage door entrance. The arrogant Kentuckian and the ingénue from Pennsylvania fell in love in short order. Marriage and a baby followed, along with a move to Los Angeles. His father took whatever bit parts he was offered and his mother did clerical work at a movie studio. His father’s career went nowhere and this he blamed on the fact that he was strapped with a wife and child. His reasoning was that he was forced to take any part, good or bad, to support his new family. If he’d been out on his own he could’ve been more selective, he could’ve chosen better roles. The truth was he was never offered any. He wasn’t, in fact, a very good actor. He still loved his wife, was still attracted to her fresh-faced beauty, it was the kid who became the scapegoat. John was the reason for his failure, the source of his resentment.
When John was ten years old his father gave up on acting and life in L.A. He took a menial but steady job at a factory outside Milwaukee.
“Dumb jackass!” John cursed his father’s choice, “He could’ve taken a boring job anywhere, he’d been in the Navy for Christ sake, he’d been all over the world. But where did he settle down, choose to settle down? Wisconsin! I can’t even describe winter in Wisconsin, I mean C-O-L-D. Colder than a well digger’s ass and that dumb son of a bitch was a well digger’s kid straight out of, “Oh by the way, your grandparents are first cousins” Kentucky. The motherfucker was the grandson and great grandson of coal miners. Who knows how many proud generations of Foster men crawled into those dark ass mines and then died of black lung disease? But Ben Foster was going to make a difference. He got out of Kentucky and made it all the way to California. He got a tan and some bit parts and extra work in films and TV. But after ten years my mom was getting more attention from the studio boss where she worked and he wasn’t even close to hitting the big time. So he not only gave up on acting, he decide we would leave California. And not for sunny Arizona or Florida but straight to middle of the road, middle fucking America, cold-nine-tenths-of-the-year upper Midwest.”
He was breathing hard, fists clenched, blue eyes as icy as the state he was describing. He looked at me imploringly, “Why did my mom go with him? We loved L.A. and she was secretary to the head of the TV studio shooting the Dukes of Hazzard. I hate my father, hate him now
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