With that, he stood up and walked to the front door for the last time.
Chapter 12
Real Time
January 1984
That night Ethan’s dream was all white with edges and walls. There was a doctor or someone in a white lab coat. Beth wanted him to talk with the doctor, and she became quite agitated when he at first refused.
“What do you remember?” a doctor he didn’t recognize, asked.
“About what?” Ethan replied, confused by the situation.
“Is there something in your past, maybe?” the doctor asked, placing the end of a black-and-white ballpoint pen between his teeth. “Something you don’t like to talk about?”
“Let’s instead talk about something I do want to talk about,” Ethan shot back, annoyed. “Like, why am I here?”
“I think you know why you’re here,” the doctor replied. “You want to go to California. You want to run away from your life and responsibilities.”
“We want what’s best for you, honey,” Beth insisted, now standing beside a white desk in a white lab coat.
“We’ve always wanted what’s best for you, son.” His father stood on the other side of him against a white wall.
“We all love you, Ethan, and want what’s best for you,” said a woman who looked like his mother as tears rolled down her cheeks. “Why do you have to go to California? That’s so far away. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Ethan was bursting inside. He wanted to be left alone. Why did they care? “Leave me alone!” he screamed. “It’s my life! You can’t control me!” He tried to stand up but couldn’t. He thought he was sitting in a chair, but there were white sheets over his legs. He was sitting upright in a bed. They were standing around the bed. The woman who looked like his mother was crying. His father’s face was expressionless. Beth was shaking her head, her eyes wide as if something was frightening her. Another doctor stood at the foot of the bed with a white clipboard. He was wearing glasses with black frames.
Ethan tried to move his arms. They were restrained. He was harnessed to the bed. He screamed. “What the fuck! You can’t stop me!”
He looked back at the doctor, craning his neck. The doctor lowered the clipboard he’d been writing on. Ethan recognized the doctor—he wasn’t a doctor at all. It was his longtime friend, Robbie.
Ethan screamed out, “California, here I come!”
Chapter 13
Ethan’s Timeline
April 1990
Beth did as she said she would and drove him to Ottawa’s airport. The drive out to Uplands Airport was foggy. The mist had floated in across Bronson Avenue, creating a melancholy dreariness, as if to ask if this was really happening.
When Beth let Ethan off at Departures, the airport looked smaller than he remembered. Beth helped him get his bags out of the trunk of their Cavalier. Strange how it looked blue again. They’d agreed to talk of the other things he might need once he arrived in California. She would keep the car. As the entrance doors to the building slid open, Ethan saw very few fellow travelers around. Most of the people were uniformed custodians, security, and other support staff. There was a sterile feeling to the terminal at this hour that he’d not noticed when he’d traveled for business with NewTec, but then he didn’t usually travel at 11 p.m.
“Well, take care of yourself, Ethan,” Beth said as they approached the customs area. “I’ll come and visit. I love you, you know.”
She gathered together her long blonde hair as if to form a ponytail and then let it fall to her back. It was something she did when she was weary. He put down his carry-on, put his arms around her, and kissed her forehead. Going to Hollywood was something he had to do, but it didn’t take away from the fact that he loved her too.
For a moment he pondered why he was going, but he chased the thought away. He knew why, even if he couldn’t explain it.
His wave was quick as he checked in to get his gate pass. As he slung his carry-on bag over his shoulder, he noticed a band on his wrist, like those used in hospitals to identify patients.
“It’s the new gate pass,” he overheard someone say.
Funny, he thought. I don’t remember anyone putting it on.
From there, Beth escorted him to customs. A woman in uniform approached with a wheelchair and stopped in front of him. He looked around. Beth was a distance away.
For you, sir, the woman seemed to say without moving her lips.
“But I don’t need flight assistance,” Ethan said and waved his hand toward Beth, but she was too far away to see him. The woman nodded as he sat down.
There was a man beside her, also wearing uniform. His was white too. “Might as well enjoy the ride,” the man said and smiled.
From there they headed to Ethan’s gate. He could never remember his gate number and thought the wristband was a great idea. On route, he asked the man and woman to stop at a kiosk. He wanted to buy breath mints and a can of Coke.
It seemed only minutes before he found himself waking up on the red-eye for Los Angeles.
On waking, he recalled his meeting with his father on the previous night, when they’d met at his father’s favorite Italian restaurant in the city. They had enjoyed an exquisite dinner of scallops and prawns on fresh linguine, served with a California Pinot Noir and followed by slices of very chocolate Queen of Sheba cake.
Ethan had been pleased that his father, not normally a comfortable man, looked relaxed. When they finished their meal, their waitress brought two snifters of Remy Martin. Ethan then pulled two Davidoff cigars from the inside pocket of his gray jacket.
“Must be some kind of news,” his father said, wetting the cigar in his mouth. He rolled the cigar adroitly to get an even light. Ethan followed his father’s lead. “I haven’t been treated so royally since you told me you were moving in with Beth. Are you still together?”
“Yes and no,” Ethan replied, “but it is connected.”
His father peered at him through a puff of smoke. He recently had grown a beard, and the sides had grown in silver-gray like his hair. Ethan thought it made him look majestic.
“Dad,” Ethan said, “I’m going to California.”
His words hung in the air like the swirls of smoke from their cigars. His father’s reaction was difficult to discern as Ethan watched him take a draw on his cigar.
“I knew you had something going on,” his father said, speaking through a cloud of smoke. He smiled, surprising Ethan. “When?”
“Tomorrow,” Ethan stated and then added, “I’m looking at a job with an engineering firm in Los Angeles.”
His father rubbed the whiskers of his beard. It reminded Ethan of his mother’s comment of a man’s need to fondle his facial hair.
Ethan took another draw on his cigar and touched the tip to the ashtray, knocking off a length of silver-gray ash. He hadn’t provided the real reason why he was leaving. “Do you remember my roommate from college, Robbie Johnson?”
Ethan’s father tried to put a face to the name. “A tall guy with brown hair? Always trying to grow a beard?”
“That’s the one,” Ethan answered.
In characteristic fashion, his father then switched subjects, a habit that brought him respect in business but did nothing of the sort for those trying to converse with him. “What do you think of the new look?” He rubbed his beard.
“It looks great—majestic, even.”
“Your mother would never let me have one—hated the scratchiness. I like majestic.”
With palms sweating, Ethan brought the conversation back to him and was ready to own up to the real reason for heading south. He wanted his father’s acknowledgement, if not his support. But his father surprised him again.
“You’re going to Hollywood to be an actor.”
Ethan smiled in relief and eased back in his chair. It was what his father said nex
t, however, that had the biggest impact.
“It’s okay, Ethan. Go and chase it. You’ll never be satisfied if you don’t. Believe me—I know.”
At a loss for words, Ethan’s eyes welled up. He could not recall his father ever speaking so candidly with him.
His father’s only question: “What took you so long?”
Ethan reflected on his father’s words as the flight attendant made her way down the aisle with water for thirsty passengers.
What took me so long? “Fear and insecurity” was what he would have said if his father had been sitting next to him. Fear had fixed itself in the back of Ethan’s head for as long as he could remember—fear of going to school, fear of his teachers, fear of bad grades, and sometimes, even the fear of what would happen just getting out of bed in the morning. He’d convinced himself that if he didn’t feel fear, the outcome of anything he did would be a disaster. Until recently, the cloak of fear had controlled almost everything he did.
By his own conventional measures, he’d followed instructions to the letter. In school, he’d been good in math and science, so engineering had been a great fit—except that engineering had never made his heart beat faster, had never made him want to get up early or stay up late, and had never made him do crazy, unthinkable things. It had just fit. He loved beautiful buildings and exotic cars, and he loved beautiful design, but the everyday work of an engineer bored him to death. The map he’d followed was simply the wrong one.
“Excuse me … would you like a beverage, sir?” asked a middle-aged flight attendant.
Although not asleep, Ethan’s thoughts had taken him far from his seat in the aircraft. He looked up at the woman with a confused expression on his face. “No … no, thank you. What … what did you say?” he stammered.
“A beverage, maybe?” she repeated.
“Just a Coke, please,” he responded.
The flight attendant’s smile disappeared into a thin line as she poured the Coke. Her lips were carefully traced in a dark burgundy lipstick, and Ethan found it difficult not to stare at them. He wondered what they’d be like to kiss. She poured a tomato juice for the woman beside him. The tomato juice looked good too.
It was then he heard her voice. Be a pest, Ethan, until life gives you what you want.
Before he could think, he spoke. “Excuse me,” he said, giving the attendant the best smile he could muster. She returned his smile. “On second thought, that tomato juice you just poured looks mighty good. Could I have a glass of that instead?”
He knew he’d inconvenienced her, but that was what he wanted. Small decisions, he thought. He would have to make them. No one was going to give the prize away. The flight attendant poured him the tomato juice and left the glass of Coke.
Ethan turned and looked two seats ahead across the aisle. He hadn’t noticed the brunette sitting there. He thought of Mila and was reminded of the promise he’d made himself to dedicate his life to acting. His eyes closed as he thought about it. He smiled as he realized his vow to keep her memory alive hadn’t died; it simply had been dormant, preparing him for the future he now embraced. His only strategy was to keep persisting until he was on the big screen. At that instant, there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that he wouldn’t achieve it.
Again, his eyes moved up the aisle. This time the brunette turned. He knew who she was. Yes, the odds were against him but instead of feeling discouraged, he was even more encouraged.
Act III
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams,
And endeavors to live the life which he has imagined,
He will meet with success unexpected in common hours.
—Henry David Thoreau
Chapter 14
Ethan’s Timeline
April 1991—Redondo Beach, California
Sunshine blasted through his eyelids. The whole world seemed lit up, setting his brain on fire. He moved his arm to shield his eyes, only to be struck by pain so intense it felt like a nail was being driven into his right eye. He prayed for relief. What had he done to deserve this? Before he could think to answer, a hand touched his bare back.
“You gotta get out of here!” Her voice was sweet and familiar but with serious urgency. “He will kill you if he finds you here.”
Ethan turned over to diminish the harsh brilliance of the sun, only to have his temples attacked by the vengeance of a hangover. Driving his throbbing head further into the pillow, his bloodshot eyes flashed open as the woman leaned over him. He felt the press of her breasts through her T-shirt on his arm. The bed came alive as she shook him. Closing his eyes, he still wanted her—such an erotic brown beauty—but not now. Tylenol and a still bed were all he desired. And darkness. Fuck the sunshine.
The woman got out of the bed, picked up Ethan’s shoes, and threw them at him. “He will fucking kill you,” she screamed in frustration, “if he finds you here!” Her voice had a hard edge that disturbed him and tarnished her beauty.
It was brutal lifting his pounding head off the pillow. He pulled on his worn deck shoes. If there was hell, he’d found it. Even his fingernails hurt.
“For Christ’s sake, please get out!” A bang came from somewhere beyond the door of the bedroom. Someone had entered the house. Her boyfriend was back. “Holy shit!” she hissed, redirecting Ethan from the bedroom door. “The window!”
The window opened wide enough for him to slip through. His movements were heavy and slow, despite his trying to go fast. But once outside, he was on green grass and running. He thought he’d put his shoes on but now was running in bare feet. His motion was hard but lethargic and in no particular direction—just away. There was a small backyard and a wooden fence that led to an alley of garbage cans and trash. Several dogs barked from the surrounding yards.
Ethan kept running until he reached a street. His head was swimming, trying to grasp where he was and how he’d gotten there. Nothing was clear; any memory of how he’d arrived was gone. Nothing seemed familiar to his foggy eyes—houses with white siding and white doors with black numbers.
Questions flew through his mind in bits and pieces. Who was she? Was she married? Was he being chased?
He didn’t get much farther before his stomach reminded him that the previous night was not to be forgotten. Before he could stop, his stomach unloaded like a fire hose through his mouth, forcing him to the ground. His stomach heaved, locking his entire body in spasm. He ached all over. Rolling onto his side, he lay still, like a man beaten, waiting for another kick to end his misery, not wanting to die but helpless to do much about it.
Calm eventually prevailed as he curled into a ball. Dry scrub grass scraped his face. He could smell the parched earth. The chant of insects was amplified to unbearable levels inside his throbbing head.
What was he doing? He was glad he didn’t know anyone here who might recognize him. He must be nuts to think he could actually achieve anything in this crazy town.
A father and son passed on the sidewalk beside where he lay. The little boy spoke. “Is that a homeless man, Dad?”
The father’s reply was laconic. “Probably.”
Ethan’s heart crumbled. Could this really be him? Had he reached bottom? His slight body heaved again in response. Dry. His stomach was attempting to turn itself inside out as if to reject its own emptiness. He tried to remember the woman’s name. Ashamed and barely conscious, his last thought was that it started with K.
As he came back to consciousness, an older woman was walking by with a young girl who had a braided ponytail. “Do you have the time?” he asked the woman.
She looked to be in her mid-fifties. Her face had the look of wrinkled leather that years of hard drinking and smoking leave behind. Her gray-streaked hair was cut short and stylishly thinned at the sides. There was a street toughness about her that implied she knew a lot more than she would ever reveal. The woman scrutiniz
ed him. “Three thirty-five,” she responded, staring him straight in the eye. “You look lost.” Her guard came down at that point and the hint of a smile curved her thin lips.
“I’ve had better days.” His voice cracked. His throat was dry from his night of smoke and alcohol, making it difficult to speak.
“Where you from?” she asked, her face softening but keeping hold of the little girl’s hand.
“Ottawa, Canada,” Ethan coughed, forgetting for the moment about his apartment in California.
“Then you’re really lost,” she said, grinning.
Ethan didn’t know whether she was making fun of him or trying to show some compassion.
“I … could use a cup of coffee and some Tylenol,” he replied, realizing he’d lost his wallet. “And … where am I?”
The woman handed him a ten-dollar bill from what looked like a white clipboard at her side. Ethan was dumbfounded. “Sorry to see that you’re down on your luck. This is a loan to get a coffee and something to eat. May your luck improve soon.” The woman started to walk away but then stopped. “By the way, what’s your name?”
“Ethan Jones,” he said. “Remember it. You’ll hear it again someday.”
“I’ll watch for you,” she said, then turned and walked away.
He raised his hand and waved, but no one saw it.
Chapter 15
Ethan’s Timeline
April 1991
The interior of a taxicab usually reveals some part of the driver’s personality; the one Ethan climbed into was no different. He was confronted by Batman, Ironman, and Captain America, all fixed to the passenger-side dashboard in their four-inch superhero splendor.
“Don’t you feel safe?” asked the driver, pointing to the figures in front of Ethan. “They protect us from the world’s evildoers.”
“Yeah, I need some of that,” Ethan said.
The driver laughed and turned the banana-yellow taxi onto the roadway. Ethan still didn’t quite know where he was.
The Actor Page 7