by Tom Vitale
I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, but I have to. I talked to San—”
Before I even knew what was happening, Damien had cleared the four feet between us and forcibly shoved me down onto the toilet seat. As I looked up at his towering frame, the veins on his forehead and neck bulged red, and his eyes cut into me. Gone was the wry and jovial, cool-under-pressure Damien I’d known for years. In his place was a Damien that reminded me he hadn’t been just any old soldier, but one of those specially trained killy soldiers.
“You little fucking faggot!” Damien was somehow screaming and whispering at the same time. “You have no fucking idea what you’re doing. We’re talking about the safety of your entire crew! You have no right to let your actions put them in danger!” Everything about him was getting redder and redder as he hissed, “If you say anything, ANYTHING about Reda, I promise you, I will make sure you regret it… Am I making myself perfectly clear?” I think Damien’s nose was starting to bleed. I’d never been more terrified in my life. I was unable to speak or even nod. “Good,” he said.
Straightening his posture, Damien opened the door and grabbed a tissue on his way out of the bathroom. I emerged a moment later trying to conceal my shaking hands. It felt like I was dreaming. The hotel room and everyone in it looked so normal, and yet what was going on was so not normal. This was one of those pivotal moments that would probably define my character; whatever I was about to say would have long-lasting implications, perhaps as Damien had said, for the rest of my life. “I wanted to let you all know…” I said, clearing my throat, “we’re going home. We have enough material to complete the episode.”
“Halle-fucking-lujah,” Zach said.
“At least we’re done with these damn meetings,” Tony said, getting up to leave.
“Is there anything else?” Damien asked, daring me to defy him. I said nothing. “Right then… Wheels up out front tomorrow morning at 0900 hours. Our friends from Misrata will be escorting us through the check-in process to make sure we don’t encounter any issues. If all goes according to plan, we shall be in Istanbul in time for cocktails.”
I couldn’t believe I’d chickened out. Over the years we’d filmed with people who were overtly homophobic. Not knowing I was gay, they’d make jokes and say “fag” every fourth word. I’d wanted to say something, but I never did. This time was so much worse.
“I have an idea,” Sandy said after I’d updated her on the situation. “I’ll wait until you are on the airplane, then I’ll call Reda and explain what’s happening. He should still be able to get a head start.”
“Tom, Tom, are you in there?” A persistent knocking came from the other side of the door.
“Oh my god, he’s outside,” I said, my voice dropping to a whisper.
“Tom! It’s Reda,” he said. “I need to talk to you. Are you in there?”
“I have to go,” I said to Sandy and let the receiver slide into its cradle.
Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock. “Tom, what’s going on?!?! You’re not answering my phone calls or SMS messages, I think you are in there!”
I wiped the tears out of my eyes and barely felt myself walking over to the door and opening it.
“I have something important to tell you,” Reda said. “I found out what you were paying Hamid. In Libya, it’s the law that if a journalist asks for protection, the militias have to provide it. Not for a cost. Hamid was stealing from you. I confronted him and he—”
“Reda, I need you to listen to me very carefully,” I said, my racing heart in stark contrast to the slow and careful enunciation of every syllable. “I can’t explain why, but I need you to go home, get some things, and leave Tripoli for a little while, and don’t speak to anyone or tell them where you’re going. I know this sounds crazy, but please, you have to do what I say.”
I didn’t know if Reda was here trying to save me $30,000 or prove he was innocent or if he even knew he’d been accused. There wasn’t any time to lose, and none of it mattered. I think it was more the bughouse expression on my face than what I said that caused Reda to take several steps backward, his eyes widening.
“Okay,” he said in a quiet voice. “These are for you and Josh.” He bent over slightly, dropping a plastic bag to the floor, then he turned around and left. I waited for the sound of the elevator doors to close before picking up the bag and locking my door. Inside the bag were a few trinket souvenirs, as well as a decorative metal dish engraved with a traditional scene and delicate cursive that read, “Tom Loves Libya.”
A large storm was kicking up off the Mediterranean. Repeated gusts of wind slammed into the sliding glass doors of my balcony, the percussive rattle making a sound reminiscent of mortars or artillery shells. I couldn’t wait to get the fuck home.
Chapter Eight
SHINY OBJECTS
THREE MONTHS AFTER TONY’S DEATH, MY SUITCASE REMAINED UNTOUCHED. I dreamed about Tony a lot, and often had the eerie sensation of catching a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye. Simple tasks like paying bills and laundry were getting more difficult. Even when I ran out of clean underwear, I didn’t dare open that suitcase. Truth be told, I’d intended to never unpack. I’d fallen victim to a maudlin superstition that if I even touched the zipper, I might have to admit to myself he was really gone. But I hadn’t managed to get it together to buy a new one, and I had a ticket on a flight to Los Angeles leaving in the morning. I didn’t have much need for a new suitcase now anyway.
Somewhere over the Midwest, the cabin started shuddering. Nervous flyer that I am, my mind raced with images of wind shear snapping off the wing or the horizon inverting as the plane entered a death spiral, the result of a jammed rudder. The shaking increased while engines throttled up and down. My heart rate caught up with my imagination as the “fasten seat belt” sign illuminated, and the pilot’s voice came over the intercom.
“We’re encountering a bit of rough air, it won’t last long. In the meantime we ask you to please stay seated with your seat belts fastened.”
Hearing from the flight deck was a good sign, I reminded myself. In an emergency, they’re far too busy to bother talking to the cattle. Tony enjoyed severe turbulence; he said it broke up the monotony of a flight. If he looked over and saw the panic on my face, he might smile and say something like, “Relax, Tom. You’re not going to die in anything as glamorous as a plane crash. It’ll be a slip in the bathtub that gets you.” I always felt a hell of a lot better, at least until I had to take a shower. But his words didn’t sound nearly as comforting in my own voice. As the wings distorted over air pockets, I tried to imagine Tony in an empty seat across the aisle.
For the eighth year in a row, I’d be spending a couple of days in mid-September at the legendary Chateau Marmont. I checked in to 55, my regular room. I smoked a cigarette on the terrace overlooking Sunset Boulevard and watched the smog of downtown LA light up with the day’s end. Everything appeared the same, but of course it wasn’t. I didn’t know who, if anyone, was next door in 54, but it wasn’t Tony. Even though it felt like he was here in a tingly phantom limb sort of way, the 2018 Emmys would be my first without him. I’d debated whether or not to stay at the Chateau, or if I should even come out for the awards ceremony. There were so many good memories turned painful wrapped up in the ritual, but ultimately I’d given in to the force of habit.
“WHAT ARE YOU GONNA SPEND your money on anyway? You can’t take it with you, Tom,” Tony said, sipping a Negroni on the hotel’s colonnaded garden terrace. His drink glittered ruby red in the late afternoon California sunshine. “You’d look good in a Tom Ford tux. And actually you can take a tux with you.” He pantomimed a crossed-arm coffin pose. “Everyone will say, ‘He looks so handsome in there, slim, rosy-cheeked, and smart. I wish I’d known him when he was alive.’”
“I’m not spending ten thousand dollars on a tuxedo,” I said. For someone who’d lived the majority of his years paycheck to paycheck, Tony seemed to have no concept of money.
“So,
anyone else staying on campus, or is the rest of the herd at the ghetto hotel?” Tony asked. “Campus,” of course, referred to the Chateau. It was Tony’s favorite hotel on earth and for good reason.
“You can get anything you want,” Tony said, eyes wide with Christmas morning juvenescence. “Call down to the front desk at three a.m. you can order cocaine, some Hell’s Angels, and a donkey. They’ll even help you dispose of a dead rodeo clown should the need arise. As long as you’re discreet and don’t disturb the other guests.”
Even though I couldn’t afford it, staying here with Tony was worth every penny of the frightening bill. Over the years and across the continents, we’d resided in a wealth of fine hotels, but you couldn’t stay anywhere else like the Chateau. For nearly a century it had been a haven for Hollywood’s elite, as famous for its eccentric elegance as for the staff’s discretion when it came to scandalous behavior. The sordid history was part of the aura, and French gothic architecture definitely added to the charm. But there was more to it than that… something paradoxically exquisite.
The hotel was gloriously out of step with time and possessed a haunting boutique-Shining-meets-Hollywood-royalty ambience. Opening in 1929 as an apartment building, it immediately went belly-up with the stock market crash. Every room was a suite and retained vintage kitchen equipment, as well as at least ten ashtrays. Despite September being peak season, it always felt like you had the place to yourself. The public spaces were eternally dim, making it easy to trip over antique deep-pile Persian rugs, especially after a few Negronis. Medieval revival cast-iron wall sconces and titanic chandeliers did little to illuminate Spanish tiles and the delicately stenciled coffered ceiling of the sunken lounge. Mismatched and slightly worn oversize sofas and tasseled Moroccan lampshades surrounded a grand piano that had been played by everyone from Jimi Hendrix to Judy Garland. After a few more Negronis you almost expected to bump into James Dean on the staircase or F. Scott Fitzgerald at the kidney-shaped pool.
The scent of gardenias and a supernatural hint of vanilla mixed with cigarette smoke hung in the air. There was no such thing as a non-smoking room, or hallway, or even elevator. Not all the light switches worked, and a mathematically perfect number of my bathroom tiles were mismatched. The hotel was just the right touch shambolic and gave the impression both damage and repair were the consequence of cosmic design rather than bacchanalian excess. It was an eccentric attention to detail that continued throughout the property.
“Cinematography is a shoe-in,” Tony said. “But we’ll never win series.”
It was 2013, the Burma and Libya episodes had received Emmy nominations across five categories, and the first season of Parts Unknown had surprised everyone including the network by exceeding ratings expectations. The show was a hit. Even reviews had been universally positive, although one pithy comment had questioned the wisdom of shooting despotic regimes like a Pfizer commercial. Zach did not find that funny. But he, Todd, and Mo were nominated for the episode, so they were over the moon.
“It has a Faraday cage,” Tony proudly explained as he handed me a shiny new Rolex. “The Milgauss was originally designed for scientists who worked in nuclear power plants, and then got adopted by the TV industry back when they were surrounded by all that electromagnetic broadcasting shit.”
As a thank-you, Tony had bought himself, Zach, Todd, Mo, and me matching watches with “Parts Unknown O.G.” engraved on the back. Tony was a bit of a watch nut. Perhaps his most prized possession was a vintage 1960s Rolex he’d inherited from his father, whom he missed dearly. He often wore his dad’s watch on shoots; maybe it was Tony’s way of bringing him along on the trip. To me, anyway, Tony’s gift held special significance well beyond the watch itself. I’d never been given something this expensive before. I half-heartedly tried to refuse it, but Tony just laughed.
My new watch was so beautiful and had a cool lightning-shaped seconds hand, but something didn’t feel right. I’d always had trouble believing the “A-Team” thing, and even though this was pretty irrefutable proof, I still had trouble believing it. Add in the Emmy nomination, and I was sick to my stomach. How had the most difficult, traumatizing shoot we’d ever done led to all of this?
Parts Unknown had begun with a bang. I’d filmed Burma, Libya, and Congo in rapid succession over the span of three months. Our itinerary had given me real pause—pretty much for the first time—about blindly following Tony on the increasing number of trips to “high-risk environments.” It was becoming ever clearer that in the world of high-stakes travel TV, it was easy enough to stumble into ethical quagmires and danger without even trying. Did I really want to be in the business of actively courting the kind of dangers—to myself and others—that we’d encountered with those shoots?
Unlike the old days, when the worst outcome might be fallout from some off-color Dracula jokes, it was clear we had the power to ruin lives. Almost nine months later, Reda still hadn’t been able to go home because of the show, and I felt like we didn’t deserve the Emmy nomination.
When I had raised the issue with Tony and expressed my frustration over not telling the full story in Libya, it was clear he wasn’t experiencing the same ambivalence.
“This show was not about us feeling scared,” he said. “That sort of shit might have worked for Travel Channel, but this is CNN, and plenty of their journalists are in much more perilous situations all the time. What were our options? Realistically? It was a catch-twenty-two. If we told the truth, that’s just throwing more fuel on the fire. We don’t go for low-hanging fruit. The bigger picture is the message.” I could see his point: we had made some compromises and saved our own skins and had gotten a great show as a result.
“Barbeque may not be the answer to world peace, but it’s a start,” Tony said in the episode. The show had been powerful and uplifting, even if it was far from reflecting the reality of our experience. Tony was also right about plenty of CNN journalists often being in much more perilous situations. The difference was, they were foreign correspondents, and we were supposed to be making some version of a food show. Technically I’d succeeded, at least insofar as I’d held it together and we got home with a show that brought us to the Emmys tonight. But at what cost? Which was the greater disservice, to gloss over those edges, or to perpetuate the image viewers already had?
Later that night when they called our names, Tony bounded toward the podium. I followed on autopilot like a deer in the headlights. We’d won our first Emmy. I don’t remember much more than the bright lights when we were standing up on stage or what Tony said. It was all a blur. Backstage, they let us smoke cigarettes before posing for group photos. Afterward Tony talked to a reporter.
“It feels pretty good,” he said with a hint of mania. “Uhh, I mean, I screwed up my life in every possible way a human being can screw up their life, I made every awful decision that a person could make. I was standing there dunking french fries at age forty-four with no future… and it seems to have worked out… Failing upwards, I’m a big believer in that.”
I couldn’t have imagined what it felt like to hold that impossibly heavy, cold, glorious electroplated gold statuette in my hand. The moral dilemma with which I’d been wrestling seemed to have evaporated. They say everyone has a price, and I guess this was mine. I’d sold my soul for two incredibly shiny pieces of metal.
Chapter Nine
FAME
TONY ALWAYS SAID HE DIDN’T WANT A FUNERAL, AND IN ACCORDANCE with his wishes no such event was held. But funerals aren’t for the dead, they’re for those left behind. Tony’s brother, Chris, arranged a memorial service at a vast Cantonese dim sum parlor located on an upper floor of a Chinatown office building.
The banquet room housed a bar, a small stage, and about twenty tables decorated in red and gold. Along one wall stood a buffet of steamed pork buns, spring rolls, dumplings, gluey lo mein as well as a host of other offerings including Popeye’s chicken, one of Tony’s guilty pleasures. Many of the letters that had been left at
Les Halles were displayed around the room. Affixed to the podium was a four-foot-tall poster-board enlargement of Tony wearing a somewhat goofy half smile. Music from a raucous wedding party one floor above spilled down the elevator shaft and mixed with the small talk.
Guests included a good number of people who had appeared on the shows throughout the years and was a who’s-who of Tony’s culinary, cinema, and travel Criterion Collection. Tony watched over the gathering from his poster, looking perhaps bemused to see everyone together. The whole evening was bathed in the fluorescent glow of unreality, and I had to repeatedly shake my head as if resetting a magic eight ball each time the thoughts piled up and threatened to overwhelm. Seeing all of these people brought so many memories and conversations I’d had with Tony to the surface.
On a trip to the Netherlands, I had been prodding Tony for some content and, per usual, he was resistant.
“Why do I have to say anything?” he said, taking a sip of coffee. “You didn’t tell me this was a talking scene.”
“Aww, c’mon, what could be better? We’re here in Amsterdam on a beautiful sunny morning sitting by a canal,” I said. “How does it feel being here?”
“Okay, you really want to know how I’m feeling?” Tony said, straightening in his chair. “I’m a fifty-six-year-old smoker. Realistically, how many years do I have left? I travel all the time and the only thing I want right now is to be home with my daughter but instead I’m stuck here being prodded to deliver some inane content by people who get paid to be my friends.”
“Go wide,” I called over the walkie.
Tony always knew what to say to get whatever it was he wanted. With one comment he’d succeeded in getting out of having to talk to the camera and making me feel both complicit and cheap in the process.
Chris delivered a powerful eulogy at the memorial that managed to be alternatingly heartbreaking and funny. Tony brought so much joy as well as so much pain. Though I don’t think he did it on purpose, Tony’s demons ensured he was a difficult and, at times, fearsome person to be around. Anthony Bourdain was a great man, even though he could, at times, be a less successful human being.