The nicest goddamn dame.

I keep a photograph of Bette Davis on my desk.

She's there shooting me a slightly skeptical, plenty amused look whenever I've fallen into a screeching, maudlin fit (or as I call it, every day). She's the patron saint of fighters: People who fight for life, rail against it, battle for success, pummel obstacles, claw themselves across the finish line. 

I became a fan almost before I saw her; perhaps I really did. My first impression was a waking dream I had, a fragmentary scrap of something, the morning her death was announced. I was 13, and had just started Grade 8. (Grade 8! The nadir. No wonder I discovered B.D., and thank heaven I did.) My radio alarm switched on at 7 am one morning to tell me that an actress I'd never heard of was dead--the person who said, "I'm the nicest goddamn dame who ever lived."


I still get a nervous, thrilled burst in my stomach when I hear those words. I was practicing meekness to survive junior high, which only established me further as School Pariah. Here was a great lady saying, if you're going to be nice, don't be.