And that’s decades of future she’s lived. She ended up having a future to inhabit. But some endings were more complicated.
* * *
—
That last night I spent with Mel, I woke up irritated with myself for how I’d behaved. In a word, I felt puny.
As I was about to get in my car, Mel remembered something: out of nowhere, Rick had written her a letter. He was living in his parents’ house in Nevada. It must have been rough. Reading between the lines, she thought they didn’t accept him as their son. She didn’t know how he was doing, as his letter—charming and funny as it was—omitted all personal details.
He did ask her a question she found curious: Was Glen still not bothered by anything?
Sometimes you get sense memories beyond words, and in this case I remember standing in the gravel driveway leading to Mel’s house-sit, the greenery of trees around us, her kitchen windows steamed up from making coffee, as she said this casually. He hadn’t asked about anyone else from the store, or anything else about me. Of all the things…
I asked for his address.
FICTION
WHEN I GOT BACK TO BERKELEY I wrote Rick a chatty letter, and asked him where he was, what he was doing. I’m sure I flirted with him.
There was no response. I was lonely and bored, and as I went running one afternoon, I imagined another letter. It would strike an avuncular tone, as if I were a fifty-year-old jaded novelist with connections to the high life. When I came back home, I wrote it out. I commiserated with Rick for Clayton having been thrown out of Andover. I said I believed the young man’s alibi—that he was out with Brooke Shields when the accident took place. Further, I believed him when he said he didn’t know how his textbooks and a bottle of bourbon were found in the headmaster’s totaled Mercedes.
I also wrote, with enough hints for Rick to fill in the gaps, that at least it was nice his sister had been there that day to comfort him. I finished with a hasty-looking PS, telling him not to even bother thanking me for the new BMW I’d gotten Clay, that it had been swag for a Rose’s Lime Juice advertisement I’d done.
A few days passed. But not many.
My landlady always put my mail on a dresser in the hall. One afternoon there were two letters for me. The first letter, on stationery with a pair of smart, nautical blue stripes running down the left margin, was an envelope with the return address of Master Clayton Savilla. The handwriting was phenomenal.
Clayton
Exeter—Prep
Room 128
Uncle Glen
1008 Mariposa Ave.
Berkeley, California
Dear Uncle Glen,
I guess mom probably told you I got expelled from Andover. Honestly, Uncle Glen, I still don’t know what happened. I suppose one of the Shriver boys was jealous of my relationship with Brooke, and pulled a rather vulgar prank involving the Headmaster’s car. Well, I like Exeter a lot, and I’m going to try real hard to make the best of it here. I do miss my friends back at the other school though.
Mom is being presented to the Queen of England after her performance with Baryshnikov at the Sydney Opera House this Spring. I’m going to spend a week with Stephanie in Monaco, then we’ll fly out for the performance opening night. John Kennedy Jr. is my big brother in the fraternity here, and we go horse-back riding every weekend at the country club. He’s a swell guy, Uncle Glen, and I’ve been giving him some pointers on his backgammon game.
I’m writing, specifically, to ask a favor of you. Andrew is hosting a weekend gala at Philip’s manor in Wales for my birthday. Diana and Charles will be chaperoning because we’re all under age, and there will be girls staying the week-end. Parents are invited, but mom will be touring with Giselle, and dad hits on all my friends, so I was wondering if you’d come along as my family member. I realize you’re busy creating the literary tome to beat Ullyses [sic], but a break might do you good. Please don’t tell my dad, because he gets so hurt, being so “thensitive” as he is. I’d greatly appreciate it if you would give it serious consideration. By the way, thanks for the car! Please write soon.
Love,
Your nephew,
Clay
I laughed at much of this, and also tried to pay attention to how he was playing his game. Apparently Bette Midler was no longer their mother, but Melanie had been promoted.
The second letter had neither stationery nor a formal return address. Instead, it was written on the back of an ad with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward asking for Save the Children donations. There were alterations: Paul Newman’s sweater now had a hand-drawn heart with an arrow through it, and the name “Lolly” over his breast.
Dear Uncle Glen,
Here I am with the Newmans; I met them through my ass-hole brother Clayton and his hoidy-toidy friends from Andover. He didn’t know I was coming, and I just crashed in on him one night at his dorm. I really got back at him and those fag ass friends of his that think they’re so fuckin grand. Guess what I did? I waited ’til he left with that Shields bitch and then I stole his car and drove it right into the Headmaster’s Mercedes! I poured a quart of rot-gut bourbon on the seat and floor of his car, and left his school books on the floor so he’ll get his butt beat. (My mom thinks I’m still at that boarding school in France, but me and Patty hitch hiked to Amsterdam ’cause we had to unload some bad ass hash, then split for the States.) Clayton is such a candy ass. I’m glad he got what he had coming. DON’T TELL MY MOM!! Got to get to Wiesbaden in 2 weeks for a smoke-out with some heads, and I’m low on dough. Mom’s stingy and dad thinks I’m still living on that piss poor allowance that doesn’t keep me in cigarettes, much less coke. Fuck. Life’s a bitch. You gotta send me some cash Uncle Glen. I know you’ll understand because you go to Berkeley, where niggers and jews are equal to women. I only need about 10K to get by this semester, and don’t want to “put out” like last term just because I couldn’t make ends meet.
The next page of the letter was written on the back of a photocopy of a half-dozen wanton-looking women clutching at their cell—an advertisement for Women Behind Bars, a drag queen play then running in West Hollywood. Each girl had been labeled carefully: Patty, Monéque, Babs, Sheryl, LaVicki, Lolly, and The Baroness.
This is a program photo of the high school play me and some of my friends put on for the Christmas pageant at “L’ecole Français.” We got expelled, but then re-instated when I reminded the Baroness that 7 girls gone means roughly $105,000 just in rip-off tuition alone, and that she’d have to cancel those silk panties from Pucci’s she’s gotten ever so fond of. Uncle Glen, you gotta help me!
I can’t talk to mom ’cause she always takes everyone else’s side against mine. She’s just like Clayton with their heads up some ballerina’s ass, listening to Clare Boothe Luce stories about Dorothy Parker and Benchley’s boring crowd. I want to feel something goddamn it, not just live vicariously through mom’s fartin’ around on stage like some 9 year old, and my dad’s inability to “cope” with anything but a thick prick up his ass and a dinner party in L.A. I promise to stop my bulimic purges in public if you just help out. Come on buddy, be a guy.
Love,
Your neice [sic]
Lolly
I was thrilled and a little horrified. It was easy to draw on my family’s toehold on culture when writing back to Rick. But the more I studied what he’d said so I could riff on it, the more darkness I saw gathering at the edges of what he was saying. I already had a vague idea of what was really going on with him. I thought I should keep going.
In my letter, I said I’d decided not to give Lolly ten thousand dollars but instead I got her a job as a roadie with the Plasmatics, the most vile punk rock band I knew about. I accepted Clayton’s invitation to the party, and spun out the story a little further, with intrigues: the possibility of fraternity hazing, money-hungry girls, poli
tical aspirations. I seeded it with ways Lolly could screw it up, and then I sent it off.
* * *
—
The next letter was from Rick. It was written around a photocopy of a hideous snapshot of a transvestite with makeup that looked like a burn victim’s.
Glen,
Why won’t my son tell me about the weekend with Prince Charles and Princess Diana this spring break? I’ve always considered myself a rather conservative gent. Don’t you think? [Here, an arrow toward the photograph of the transvestite.] Sure, I gave a party for the Plasmatics when they came through town, but how was I to know the press was there snapping photos just when I sprayed the mace in the lead singer’s face? I was coked-out; doesn’t that mean anything anymore?
I have no idea where Melanie is. She’s trying to ditch me. Are you having an affair with her? Lolly told me you were sleeping with Melanie. Is this true? Doesn’t she even have enough respect for my reputation, let alone the fact we have 2 children in school, and one on the road? I don’t blame you, because you’re a man, but she, she should act her age and stop tramping around like Fausta and Lolly. She has it easy. She only deals with Clayton (when she has the time), almost never with Fausta and Lolly, high-foots it around the world (with no forwarding address) and sleeps indiscriminately with any foul-dicked pig she wants (present company excepted). I’m not sleeping with other women; doesn’t the sanctity of marriage mean what it used to before Billie Jean King and that Barnett girl aired their dirty laundry on prime-time T.V.?
Where is she? Huh?
As for Lolly. Not a dime. Do you hear me? Not a dime. I got her a job selling chocolate mint cookies outside the Bank of America for Jerry Lewis. She’s got to learn respect and love for the less fortunate. The money may not be terrific, but she’ll learn the real value lies in the hearts (and soles [sic]) of those crippled children.
And Clayton. Glen, we have to have a fag to man talk about my son. The car is being returned. It’s not that I don’t appreciate your generosity, but he’s too young to start boasting the likes of such an ostentatious consumer fetish. He’s beginning to turn away from me, as though I were “Stella Dallas” in cheap costume jewelry, waving a big pearl dinner ring in flamboyant gesticulations with my expressive wrist movements. I know Clayton loves me, and is probably even ashamed that he feels his friends make mock-soup of my theatrical antics, but I can’t bear the pain of losing my boy. He defends me ferociously, but I understand peer pressure can be rather taxing. I remember when he was only 11. I gave a birthday party for him to rival Christmas in “Mommie Dearest.” I decorated everything myself, made the cake, and bought him his first pair of top-siders, and then I heard one of his friends say, “How come your dad acts like a girl?” It broke my heart. Not for my sake, but for Clay’s. That’s when I decided it might be best for him to go away to school. Now I feel I’m losing him and the pain is too much to bear. So you see, I guess I’m jealous. I want my baby back. He’ll always be my baby, something you may not understand. Perhaps I haven’t lost him yet. I can only hope.
Rick.
I read this in my room in the early evening, in winter, with the radiator banging. The sun had set long before. It felt like whatever game we’d been playing had gone over the edges of the board and into something more darkly eternal. It was humor but it wasn’t something I knew how to continue, as it came from pain much deeper than my own. I knew something was terribly wrong.
I wrote him a letter that night, long and full of detail. It didn’t joke. I’m not sure what I told him about Melanie. I hope I made it a good story. I hope there was romance. Mostly, I hope I didn’t get into my problems with Japanese, or the girlfriends whom I didn’t understand. I hope I told him I continued to be worry-free, that I was a pure running stream, untroubled. That would have been kind.
A week went by. He didn’t write back. I wrote again. Then I wrote one last time, this time feebly continuing the game we’d started, asking again about his wayward girl and loyal boy. I pointed out that all we can do is choose our family, right? I posted the letter and I waited.
I never heard another word.
* * *
—
When I was working at Hunter’s I read for the first time that Joan Didion claim that we tell ourselves stories in order to live. It was a flashy quotation, but I hadn’t felt the desperation that made it more substantial. We need to tell ourselves stories because the alternative is unbearable. Rick had written me a suicide note. Along the way he had created a family that would not fail him. Even the children who hated him.
Something happens when you see your future and your future is only oblivion. This was a familiar thought to me, because I think my aunt Rosemary had seen the same thing. Our family myth is of great opportunity taken away by great cruelty, and in that, Rick could be an honorary one of us, I thought. I could easily paint his portrait, in that he would be just as louche as my grandfather George, reclining with a joint, gazing with the same sage intensity into the viewer’s eye.
Hello, old friend, he might say. I tried to escape, too. Didn’t work.
* * *
—
Early one evening in late March, my mother called and when she heard my voice on the phone, she sounded very strange. She thought she’d seen me outside the El Cortez hotel. “How odd,” she said. “You must have a doppelgänger.”
When she hung up, I was mildly depressed. It was unclear even to my mother who or where I was. Be here now, cool running stream, the way to do is to be, those seemed like slogans written on collapsed banners with frayed ends and cobwebs discovered in the headquarters of a losing socialist campaign. I was not a panther, nor a chimp.
I looked for reasons to cheer up. I had just gotten a letter from Mel, which she signed “love (she says it now, the bitch).” There was a girl I’d known in high school, Marci, who was a flirt, who had said she might visit me, and she kept calling it off but I was fairly sure she was on her way soon. Cindy had written me to say she’d almost been raped, adding a frowny face, but that she wished I would come back and see her. There was a girl from Hiroshima named Yoshiko who was interested in visiting me in Berkeley. Heidi was thinking of flying out. There was another girl in my film class, Noelle, who had flirted with me. I made a printed list of names and stared at it and felt no better because it felt like something was missing.
* * *
—
One night, I was lying on my bed, sprawled among three friends, Kirsten, Rachel, and Sophie. We’d gone to high school together. We were supposed to go out and join a larger group to go dancing. But I wouldn’t budge. It was raining. One or another of them would occasionally poke me in the side to motivate me, but I just kept saying things to postpone moving. We made a sculptural tangle of limbs, a Siamese Gordian knot. I wished I had a camera. I tried to memorize it: my legs were on top of Sophie’s legs, Sophie was up on one elbow, saying sarcastic things, I had one hand on Rachel’s knee, and Rachel was at the end of the bed, making dry responses to Sophie that somehow managed to simultaneously make fun of me. Kirsten was against the headboard, and I was faceup in Kirsten’s lap. At some point, to jokingly shut me up, she pulled her sweater over my face, so I was just staring upward at the underside of her bra.
There was nothing sexual in this. The three were on my list of people I wanted on my island. It should have been soothing to be enmeshed among these bodies. I was breathing through Kirsten’s sweater, my head pressed against her stomach. It wasn’t like I was happy. I was thinking, “Isn’t this what I want?”
I wanted more women. I wanted women to pick me up and carry me from the bed, down the stairs, and to the car, and I wanted women to laugh at my jokes and make fun of me, and to come to me with their problems, and then for them to all go away and think about me from afar. Even if all the women I knew desired me, it wouldn’t quite be enough, and the melancholy it would generate—being
universally beloved felt melancholy to me—would finally mean something. I would say, “Even though I have the love of all the women, I am still alone.” There was something like fighting words in that.
If I could have frozen that moment, I would have, dissatisfaction and all. Because beginning now, it peeled back.
“Where are those letters from that guy you worked with?” Kirsten asked.
Making a show of how much I didn’t want to dislodge myself, I got up and pulled them out of a notebook. I distributed them.
Kirsten, Rachel, and Sophie looked at them. There was a lot of laughter, and exclamation. Some reading aloud of individual, crazy bits of language. How strange these were!
“Why did you write him in the first place?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did you know to ask about his kids?”
“I don’t know.”
Someone asked, “But where is he?”
“What?”
“Where is he now?”
I didn’t know what to say. “You don’t know?”
It wasn’t obvious to any of them.
I asked it a few times, until it was annoying. “Really? You don’t know?” I looked at them with surprise, wondering what I’d experienced that made me never ask that question. I’d known, even before I wrote my first letter to him, what was going to happen to Rick.
I felt that continuing strange tug, a fishing lure embedded in my gut. When I was four or five, looking at my first anatomy chart with Mom, I saw the duodenum and the pancreas and the mysterious appendix (my father was missing his), the kidneys (my mother was missing one of those), and I ran my finger along the names. I asked my mother, “But where’s my soul?” I remember her finger, then her whole palm sweeping the chart. Your soul is everywhere, she said. It’s in everything. You can’t see it.
I Will Be Complete Page 34