The Masked Man: A Memoir And Fantasy Of Hollywood

by Tom Wilson

  He went into an improvisation, playing me as a character. My voice in the scene, provided by Richard Pryor, was the friendly sing-song of a slice of white bread. "Sir," he whined, "Please sit down so Mr. Pryor can continue, or I'll have to rip your head off and take a crap down your neck! Sir!" He folded his arms uncomfortably, and walked across the stage with the stiff gait of the angry white guy, and the crowd erupted, welcoming him back to hot inspiration.

  "Rainbow man went to 'Nam, you dumb muh-fuggah. He was three years old. Escaped from 'Nam, swam to Hawaii…"

  He pointed at me. "Where do yo think he got the shirt, muh-fuggah?!"

  The place erupted at my expense, and the man sat down. "Don't you mess wit' Rainbow Man! Rainbow Man knows some white-ass karate and he'll kill 'yo ass. He won't do time, either! Look at the muh-fuggah!" Back to the mayo on white. "Well, your honor, he was being disrespectful during the show, so I ripped his head off and dragged him behind my car!" he said, taking on the deeper voice of the white judge, "Of course, Rainbow Man! Not guilty!"

  From that day forward I was Rainbow Man, accepted as a regular and greeted warmly by the cynical horde of comics, brought into the fold by the king of comedy himself.

  If Richard Pryor was king, Robin Williams played princely court jester, and as Richard Pryor worked on "in concert" movies, Robin buzzed around him in colorful outfits like a Godspell cast member on speed. Robin spent his time leaning on the back wall of the showroom, memorizing material performed by less successful comics for his crazed talk show appearances, where starlets sat on the sofa next to him, marveling at his genius and energy as he spouted lines from anywhere his plagiarist hunger would take him, usually the notebooks of new comics, thrilled at the prospect of performing in front of a T.V. star with his own album.

  There was an odd thrill to see your material being performed later in the week by Robin Williams, as he twisted the joke into a sweaty dance, performed in suspenders and pantaloons with a trumpet voice. Painful to have material lost in the thrashing maw of his comedy avarice, but still, it was stolen by the "Mork from Ork" guy, so you must be on to something, and maybe even something good. As a new guy he'd never spoken to me, though he did stand around watching me perform quite a bit, until a few weeks later when we ended up backstage alone together and he waved his hand, beckoning me to him. Was it to offer some grudging friendship after stealing my "Guardian Comedian" bit with the red beret and funny karate moves? Was it to offer an apology and a fifty dollar bill in a backhanded thanks, which I'd heard happened occasionally. I walked over to him in slow motion, ready to memorize the encounter for phone calls home later that night, reporting on my brush with illustrious, yet counterfeit genius. He drew me toward him, leaned in and said "Get me a vodka."

  "A what?" I asked.

  "A vodka. Get me one."

  "I'm a comic here."

  "Go back to the bar and tell Louie it's for me."

  "Uh…can a waitress--"

  "Go get me a vodka."

  From out of my body, I watched myself actually go get him a vodka. I was a new guy, and word was if you upset Mork, you might just be out of the Store and making balloon animals at a Mexican restaurant before you knew it. He took the vodka thanklessly, and I smiled, joining the ranks of regular comics who refused to go onstage if he was in the room, and fighting the urge to take those multi-colored Godspell suspenders of his and shoving them back to Ork the hard way, with my foot.

  The stage was always spotlit and working, with hundreds of comedians sweating and writing in the cloud of smoke swirling under the low ceiling, performing desperately in front of agents, and tourists, druggies, rock stars, and actors. Occasionally even good actors.

  Very late one Monday night, Christopher Walken ambled down Sunset and walked into the club, only days after the accidental drowning of Natalie Wood, a notorious Hollywood tragedy that happened while he was on the boat, fanning flames for the L.A. news talking heads, crazy with innuendo.

  "Hey," he whispered, and I stepped aside, letting him in without ticket or hassle, trying not to blurt "HEY! You were in The Deer Hunter and I just got here from Pennsylvania and you won an ACADEMY AWARD - YES! - and you're really good and I saw you in that movie adaptation of the Kurt Vonnegut short story "Who Am I This Time" and you were great in that, too. WHOO! Hi." I just said "Sit wherever you want, man," playing the hip nightclub comic who'd seen it all.

  I did a set late that night, free-associating in a comic fugue of reference and twist, aware every second that I was performing for an Oscar winner who was on the boat with Natalie Wood, and pulled every last shard of energy left in the room into the white spotlight, finally taking an exhausted bow and heading back to the door to help waitresses clear the empty glasses from the empty tables in back.

  Christopher Walken drained the last of his several drinks and weaved a bit as he walked up to me.

  "Hey," he said, in the now famous halting cadence, "I…really like…what you do…yeah."

  I controlled myself, took a sip of water and answered "Thanks, man, I really like what you do."

  He squinted in the cosmic understanding of booze at 2 A.M. and answered "Yeah," walking out of the club onto the street.

  Mick Jagger followed him a few nights later, and hopped onstage to preen and flap like a flamingo, finally holding up his hand to silence the cheers and say "I just want to say…I really respect what these guys do…" He was thundered with more cheers, in appreciation of the comic's art form, yes, but most importantly, a throaty celebration of their undeniable hipness in recognizing it. After the sky rocketing career of Pauly Shore it might be impossible to believe, but in 1981 on the Sunset Strip, comics were taking the place of obscure jazz musicians, blowing esoteric improvisations into black rooms full of blue smoke. It was a bizarre victory - the triumph of the class clowns. The comedy world was racing forward with killer sets, packed rooms, jet fuelled late nights, and creative lives racing fast, inches from the wall. The first downshift happened over the span of a single night, right before my eyes.

  There was lots of talk about ghosts and karma and juju at the Comedy Store, since the stories of poltergeists and ectoplasm were the most fun to tell in the dark hallways, and this being comics, many were sure that they weren't as far along in their career as they should be, stymied by the jealousy of dead phantoms ruining their shows. Chairs did rattle in there, and ashtrays would fly, sheet white waitresses running to safety from a slammed door or creepy vibe, but I was never visited by a ghost except for one. I was working at my back door post watching the show and counting off comics before it was time for my set, after King Richard had finished, taking most of the crowd with him. The door next to me swept open, and John Belushi walked in.

  He'd been to the Comedy Store lots of times, hanging out in the parking lot and stomping down the strip to the Rainbow Room, Whiskey-A-Go-Go, and other thumping Sunset rock clubs, vibrating punk through the foundations of the entire block, or if he was really wasted and ready for quiet, heading to the left down Sunset, toward his bungalow at the Chateau Marmont Hotel a few blocks away.

  Belushi stumbled through the back door in slow motion, eyelids heavy and T-shirt stained as usual, looking a little fatter, and paler, and higher than the usual fat, pale, and high.

  "Hey, John, how's it going?" I asked. Not that I really knew him that well, but I went for it, since he usually talked to me a little or nodded in my direction, the big kid who sat at the door and sometimes performed when it got late.

  "Hey, man," he managed, weaving past me down the hall to slowly fold himself onto the steps leading upstairs to another tiny showroom. He leaned back against the dirty carpet, stretching his distended frame and exposing a blue-grey gut. "Howzi-goin'" he slurred back at me.

  Clearly, he needed care this time. Way out there on whatever dreamy poison he could find, he bobbed his head, and made staying upright while sitting on a darkened staircase something of a project. "Can I get you something, John?" I asked. He didn't answer, did
n't seem to hear me at all as he fumbled shredded balls of paper out of his pockets, trying to read scribbled notes with greetings and phone numbers on them.

  "Need anything?" I asked again, turning up my internal volume and brightness knobs.

  No answer but a gaze of misty incoherence.

  I stood there for a while longer so it would seem like we were talking to each other for a long time if other comics walked by, but we weren't. John Belushi wasn't performing a sketch, he really was blinking his eyes, squinting and trying to focus enough to read the ragged notes, holding them with one hand and then the other, close and far away before dropping them between his legs onto the steps below.

  The crowd near the back door began to mumble and hum, a sign that someone important was making an entrance, and Richard Pryor turned the corner, walking down the hallway and slowing down when he came close and saw John on the steps, with Rainbow Man gathering his crumpled napkins to hand back to him.

  "John, what's happenin," Richard said in his jazz whisper.

  John looked up and made a sound close to recognition.

  I decided to just shut up and stand there, far out of my league, but on the solid ground of a standup comic on home turf. I was the doorman, and a "regular" comic at that, accepted at the Comedy Store, so I belonged on those beer soaked stairs as much as either of them. I was standing next to Richard Pryor and John Belushi on the back staircase of the Comedy Store, waiting for the opportunity to say something casual, sharp, and funny without sounding too over prepared. Something, anything to make Pryor chuckle in spite of himself, or Belushi wake up. Richard Pryor pulled a pristeen handkerchief out of his back pocket and fluttered it open, laying it onto the stained carpet, sitting down next to John, and looking at me with peaceful but unwavering eye contact for more than a few seconds. I quickly smiled and walked backwards, away from them, heading back to my stool a few yards down the hallway to point toward the ladies room, tell drunks to shut up, and get ready for my set.

  They talked very quietly there, in whispers and conspiratorial chuckles, and Richard stood up, wiping his pants and heading back into the showroom for another set. John leaned forward on the step to get up, and gave up on that idea, sitting back down for a rest before trying again. He looked at me again, and I said "Need something?"

  He gestured at me to come over there, and I hopped off the stool again. Bloated and ashen, harried and high, he looked flat out horrible, careening somewhere at the very edge of the abyss. I walked toward him while saying a prayer, for health and peace, and an end to the storm that raged far beyond anyone's power to understand or stop it. I don't know if it was simple pity or strange premonition, but I reached the bottom of the stairs ready to pull him to his feet.

  "Okay, here we go, John."

  He leaned forward and pulled me toward him.

  "Where am I?" he mumbled.

  "You're at the Comedy Store."

  "Where?" he asked in disbelief.

  "The Comedy Store on Sunset. In the back hallway," I said.

  He took it in, and took his voice down another level.

  "Have I been here before?" he asked.

  "What do you mean?"

  "You know…Have I been here before?"

  "You've been here before, but not tonight," I said, "This is the first time you've been here tonight."

  He groaned and wrestled himself off the stairs, standing next to me. "Thanks," he said, putting a hand on my shoulder for balance.

  He walked out the back door through the parking lot and made a left on Sunset, toward the Chateau Marmont hotel and his bungalow, where he would die that night, only a few hours later.

  I had a few chances and should have returned it to him, but I still have Richard Pryor's handkerchief that he left on the stairs that night. While they walked away from me - Richard Pryor to the stage, and John Belushi to his deathbed, I picked up the white handkerchief from the stair, folded it carefully, and carried it for a long time, as a talisman of a time, a memory of a place, as a starched, linen flag of caution and too early surrender.

  THIRTEEN

  "He died that night?" the Ranger said, placing a rinsed bowl into the dishwasher. "Thanks ever so much for that meal, Caroline."

  "If you keep helping with cleanup you can come over every night!"

  "Yeah, he died that night, right after I talked to him," I said, "I woke up, turned on the T.V., and they were rolling him out of the hotel in a body bag."

  "A tragedy," he said, shaking his head, "That is just a shame."

  "You were around back then, you don't remember it?"

  "Of course I remember it, but that doesn't make it any less a shame," he said.

  We fell silent and avoided eye contact for a while as a plane roared above us in final approach to somewhere.

  "Yes, a shame," he said again.

  "Well, it's not like he died running a marathon or anything," I said.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, the writing was on the wall with that one, you know? I've seen the end of that movie lots of times. You can't go around doing that stuff and be around for too long."

  "They don't know what they're doing," the Ranger said.

  "They know what they're doing, they're getting wasted and throwing up on people's feet and they don't care. The jury is in on that one. If you keep unbuckling your seat belt and standing up on the roller-coaster, you're gonna fall off."

  "Wounded souls aren't lost souls," he said, "They're searching for what they think is love and can't find it. Searching in the wrong place is a mistake, not a crime."

  Caroline wiped her hands with a towel and looked him up and down. "Ellie's right," she said.

  "How do you mean?" he said.

  "Well, if you're not an angel, you sure talk like one."

  I didn't know what to say to that, so I scratched my nose and picked up a tablespoon, flipping it around in one hand.

  He stared at some ice melting at the bottom of his glass.

  "So, isn't it about time for Twister to show up?" I asked.

  "Hmm?" he asked, tipping the glass back to clink ice into his teeth.

  "Are you going to ride out of here in some ridiculous and probably embarrassing way? That seems to be what happens."

  "Nope," he called out, "Unless you want me to."

  "Well, I still don't even know what's going on with you," I said, "I mean, I don't even know why you're--"

  I froze mid-sentence and walked into the living room, waving him in after me.

  "Am I dying or something?" I whispered, "I didn't even do that Belushi stuff! Am I dead? Are you going to take me to some alley somewhere and show me that I've been dead for a day and a half?"

  "You've got me here," he said, "What on earth are you talking about?"

  "I'm definitely not dead," I said.

  "Not by what I can see."

  "Am I going to be dead?" I asked.

  "You mean…eventually?" he asked.

  "What are you guys up to in there?" Caroline called out. "Nothing, honey!" I said, "No, I mean, like, am I dying today, or soon, or something."

  "No, I don't think it's today."

  "Tomorrow?"

  "No."

  "Soon?"

  He leaned on the back of a chair, looking at me through the mask. "Look," he said, "I don't know any of those things. I just came by to get to know you, it's as simple as that. Walk a mile in your moccasins, that sort of thing."

  I collapsed onto the sofa and squinted. "Walk a mile in my moccasins?"

  "You've never heard that prayer?"

  "What prayer?"

  He took off his hat, bowed his head, and really started to pray. "Great Spirit, grant that I may not judge another man until I've walked a mile in his moccasins," keeping his head bowed for a long enough moment that I said, "Amen. Yes. I've seen that on postcards on the way to Vegas."

  I grabbed my car keys and headed for the door.

  "What are you up to?" he asked.

  "I'm going to
get a coffee and see my daughter."

  "I think Sarah got back on the computer," he said.

  "No, not Sarah. Katie. She works there."

  "Let me go with you!" he said, hopping across the room to pick up his gunbelt.

  "Great idea, Ranger, bring the guns and watch my back," I said, "but if you expect me to pay for your coffee and not ask you why you're here, you're wearing the wrong set of moccasins, bro."

  He walked out the front door behind me as I yelled "Cover me!" loudly over my shoulder, and "Behind that rock, masked man!" when we rounded the car, in front of a parade of elderly ladies fitness walking down the sidewalk in floral jogging suits. The Ranger ambled to the passenger door, reflected swirls of light sparkling on every rivet, bullet and buckle of his outfit. The ladies caught sight of him and froze, a sea of pink velvet as he tipped his hat, averting his eyes to allow them some privacy.

  "Exercise is a good habit," he said, as I pulled out of the driveway.

  "What do you mean… Belushi?" I asked.

  "No, the ladies outside," he said, "It's a good habit."

  "Yes it is," I said, pausing for a sarcastic beat, "A good habit."

  "It is," he said.

  "I just said it is! Maybe you should have ridden in and told Belushi about it!"

  "You're very tense, Tom. Is this about not wanting to talk about the movie, because I hope you've noticed that I haven't."

  "No, you haven't."

  "Even though I do think you were very good in it."

  "Thank you."

  "So, why don't you talk about it?"

  I ground the steering wheel in my palms and pulled my head toward the windshield, searching for words. "Ranger, there are boundaries… Boundaries, you know what I mean?"

  "I understand that," he said, staring at the floor,

  "I was just curious." "I've answered so many questions…said so many things about them…to so many people," I sighed, "I just don't like to--"

  "To talk about such a--"

  "No. Not with my friends, I don't. I just think…you're…we're, like, friends now, if that's what we're calling it, and…"