by Ben Greenman
In the extraordinarily transparent air, each leaf, each drop of dew, stood out distinctly; it was all smiling at me in the stillness, half asleep. There was a mound in the garden; I went up it and sat down. I was tormented by a delicious feeling. I knew for certain that in a moment I should hold in my arms, should press to my heart, her magnificent body, should kiss her eyebrows; and I wanted to disbelieve it, to tantalize myself, and was sorry that she had cost me so little trouble and had yielded so soon.
But suddenly I heard heavy footsteps. A man of medium height appeared down the street, and I recognized him as Gary Busey. He leaned against a tree and heaved a deep sigh, then lay down. A minute later he got up and lay on the other side of the tree. The gnats and the dampness of the night prevented his sleeping.
“Oh, life!” he said. “Wretched, bitter life!”
Looking at his bent, wasted body and hearing his heavy, noisy sighs, I thought of an unhappy, bitter life of which the confession had been made to me that day, and I felt uneasy and frightened at my blissful mood. I came down the knoll and went to the house.
Life, as he thinks, is terrible, I thought, so don’t stand on ceremony with it, bend it to your will, and until it crushes you, snatch all you can wring from it.
Catherine was standing on the verandah. I put my arms round her without a word and began greedily kissing her eyebrows, her temples, her neck.
In my room she told me she had loved me for a long time, more than a year. She vowed eternal love, cried and begged me to take her away with me. I repeatedly took her to the window to look at her face in the moonlight, and she seemed to me a lovely dream, and I made haste to hold her tight to convince myself of the truth of it. It was long since I had known such raptures. Yet somewhere far away at the bottom of my heart I felt an awkwardness, and I was ill at ease. In her love for me there was something incongruous and burdensome, just as in Michael Douglas’s friendship. It was a great, serious passion with tears and vows, and I wanted nothing serious in it—no tears, no vows, no talk of the future. Let that moonlight night flash through our lives like a meteor.
At three o’clock she went out of my room, and, while I was standing in the doorway, looking after her, at the end of the corridor Michael Douglas suddenly made his appearance; she started and stood aside to let him pass, and her whole figure was expressive of repulsion. He gave a strange smile, coughed, and came into my room.
“I left my hat here yesterday,” he said without looking at me.
He found it and, holding it in both hands, put it on his head; then he looked at my confused face, at my slippers, and said in a strange, husky voice unlike his own:
“I suppose it must be my fate that I should understand nothing. . . . If you understand anything, I congratulate you. It’s all darkness before my eyes.”
And he went out, clearing his throat. Afterward in the kitchen I saw him standing by the coffeemaker. His hands were trembling, he was in nervous haste and kept looking round; probably he was feeling terror. Then he went out to his car and left.
Shortly afterward I called a car for myself. The sun was already rising, and the mist of the previous day clung timidly to the bushes. On my way I saw Gary Busey walking on the side of the road. He was wobbling, either from fatigue or from drunkenness.
The terror of Michael Douglas, the thought of whom I could not get out of my head, infected me. I thought of what had happened and could make nothing of it. I looked at the rooks, and it seemed so strange and terrible that they were flying.
Why have I done this? I kept asking myself in bewilderment and despair. Why has it turned out like this and not differently? Why did she have to have feelings? Why did he have to come into the room for his hat? Does it all come down to a hat?
I have not seen Michael Douglas nor his wife since. I am told that they are still living together.
Chapter 16
The Death of a Redheaded Man
ONE FINE EVENING, CONAN O’BRIEN WAS SITTING IN THE second row at the Staples Center, watching the Lakers run away from the Sacramento Kings. He was thrilled to see the game, excited and gratified. But suddenly . . . In stories one so often meets with this “But suddenly.” The authors are right: life is so full of surprises! But suddenly his face puckered up, his eyes disappeared, his breathing was arrested, he put his head down, then drew it up suddenly, and “Achoo!”
It is not reprehensible for anyone to sneeze anywhere. Petty thieves sneeze and so do captains of industry, and sometimes even television hosts. All men sneeze. Conan O’Brien wiped his face with a napkin, and like a polite man, looked round to see whether he had disturbed anyone by his sneezing. But then he was overcome with confusion. He saw that an old gentleman sitting in front of him in the first row of the stalls was carefully wiping his bald head and his neck and muttering something to himself. In the old gentleman, Conan O’Brien recognized Larry King.
I have sprayed him, thought Conan O’Brien. I am not planning to be on his show anytime soon, but still it is awkward. I must apologize.
Conan O’Brien gave a cough, bent his whole person forward, and whispered in the man’s ear.
“Pardon me, Mr. King, I sprayed you accidentally. . . .”
“Never mind, never mind.”
“Excuse me, I did not mean to.”
“Please, sit down! Let me watch the game. I’m here with Chance and Cannon!”
Conan O’Brien was embarrassed, he smiled stupidly and fell to gazing at the court. He gazed at it but was no longer feeling bliss. He began to be troubled by uneasiness. At halftime he went up to Larry King, walked beside him, and overcoming his shyness, muttered:
“I sprayed you, Mr. King. Forgive me. You see, I didn’t do it to—”
“Oh, that’s enough about it. I’d forgotten it, but you keep reminding me. It’s like Liz Taylor,” said Larry King, moving his lower lip impatiently.
I don’t know what he means, but there is something fierce in his eyes, thought Conan O’Brien. And he doesn’t want to talk. I ought to explain to him that I really didn’t mean anything by it, that it is how nature works. I don’t want him to think I spit on him. He doesn’t think so now, but he will think so later!
On getting home, Conan O’Brien told his wife about his sneezing. It struck him that she took too frivolous a view of the incident; she was a little frightened at first, but when she learned that Larry King had said that it was nothing to him, she was reassured.
“Still, you had better go and apologize,” she said, “or he will think you don’t know how to behave in public.”
“That’s just it! I did say that I was sorry, but he didn’t take it right. He just said something strange about Elizabeth Taylor. There wasn’t time to talk properly.”
The next day Conan O’Brien went to apologize. He found out that Larry King was taping a series of brief interviews with sitcom stars. He put on a shirt and tie, drove to the studio, and waited while Larry King spoke to Kaley Cuoco, Jon Cryer, and Joel McHale. Finally, Larry King stood and walked toward the bathroom. Conan O’Brien intercepted him.
“Yesterday at the game, Mr. King,” Conan O’Brien began, “I sneezed and accidentally sprayed you.”
“I have nothing to say about it,” Larry King said. He went to the bathroom, and when he came out, he went straight over to Julie Bowen to speak to her.
He won’t talk to me, thought Conan O’Brien, turning pale. That means that he is angry. It can’t be left like this. I have to explain myself to him.
When Larry King had finished his conversation with Julie Bowen and was heading out to the parking lot, Conan O’Brien intercepted him again.
“Mr. King! If I am bothering you, it is only because I feel such regret. It was not intentional. Please believe me.”
Larry King made a mournful face and waved his hand.
“You’re just making fun of me,” he said as he closed the car door and drove away.
Making fun of him? thought Conan O’Brien. That’s not true at all. He has int
erviewed thousands of people, but he won’t stop to listen to me. If that is how it is, I am not going to apologize to that guy anymore. He can go to hell. I’ll write a letter to him, but I won’t make any more attempts in person.
So thought Conan O’Brien as he drove home. But he did not write a letter to Larry King; he thought and thought but could not write a sentence. He had to go next day to explain in person.
The next day, Larry King was interviewing sports figures: LeBron James, Phil Mickelson, Stephen Strasburg. When Conan O’Brien saw that he was done with Danica Patrick, he hurried toward him. “I tried to talk to you yesterday,” he muttered. Larry King fixed him with an owlish stare. “But it was not to make fun of you. I was apologizing for having sprayed you when I sneezed. I did not dream of making fun of you. If I made fun of you, if people started making fun of people without any concern for the truth, then there would be no respect for persons, there would be—”
“Get out!” yelled Larry King, turning suddenly purple and shaking all over.
“What?” asked Conan O’Brien, in a whisper turning numb with horror.
“Get out!” repeated Larry King, now stamping his foot.
Something seemed to give way in Conan O’Brien’s stomach. Seeing nothing and hearing nothing, he reeled to the door, went out into the street, and staggered to his car. Reaching home mechanically, without taking off his tie, he lay down on the sofa and died.
Chapter 17
A Trilogy: The Man in a Case, Gooseberries, About Love
THE MAN IN A CASE
In Northern California, almost on the border with Oregon, some men went fishing and then stayed for the night in the Moosehead Lodge. There were two of them, Jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler. Jack Nicholson had been born John Joseph, a rather formal name which never suited him, and he was called simply Jack from the time he was a boy. He came fishing every year to escape the city. Adam Sandler stayed every summer at Pelican Bay, so he was thoroughly at home in the area.
They did not sleep. Jack Nicholson, a burly old fellow, was sitting outside the door, smoking a cigarette in the moonlight. Adam Sandler was lying inside on his bed, and could not be seen in the darkness.
They were telling each other all sorts of stories. Among other things, they spoke of the fact that the elder’s girlfriend, a striking woman in her thirties, had never been outside of Los Angeles, had never boarded an airplane in her life, and had spent the last ten years biking from her house to yoga and the grocery store, only occasionally getting into a car.
“That is terrible but not unheard of,” said Adam Sandler. “There are people in the world who try to retreat into their shell like a hermit crab. Maybe she has her reasons. I mean, maybe she’s in touch with something ancient. Maybe she’s returning to the period when the ancestor of man was not yet a social animal and lived alone in his den.”
“Or maybe she likes waiting for me,” laughed Jack Nicholson. “You can understand that.”
“Who knows?” said Adam Sandler. “We’re not psychologists. But people like her are not that uncommon. That’s all I’m saying. I’ll give you another example. Back in my early days at Saturday Night Live, I worked closely with Jon Lovitz. In those days, he was nothing like he is now. He was remarkable for always wearing rain boots and a warm wadded coat, and carrying an umbrella even in the very finest weather. He also kept the sleeve for the umbrella, and he had a pocket watch that he kept in a leather bag, and when he took out his keys, they were also in a little case. His face seemed to be in a case too, because he always hid it in his turned-up collar. He wore sunglasses even on overcast days and earmuffs if it was less than fifty degrees, and when he got into a cab always told the driver to turn off the air and roll up the windows. In short, the man displayed a constant impulse to wrap himself in a covering that would isolate him and protect him from external influences. Reality irritated him, frightened him, kept him in continual agitation. Maybe to justify this agitation, he always did old-fashioned comedy. He spoke in a formal tone. He watched black-and-white movies. ‘Oh, no one talks like this anymore,’ he would say despairingly while watching some old film noir; and as though to prove his point he would screw up his eyes and do an impression of Trevor Howard or one of those old British types. It became central to who he was as a performer. It was like his umbrellas and his rain boots, in a way.
“Jon Lovitz also tried to hide his thoughts in a case. The only things that were clear to his mind were show schedules and newspaper articles about crime, because those kinds of things helped him stay rigid and fearful. When he read an article about an attack on East Forty-first Street, say, he became clear and definite about not walking on that street at all. Whenever anyone took a risk, it made him nervous. If there had been a boat accident and I told him I was thinking of going sailing, he would shake his head and say softly:
“ ‘Sailing seems fun, I guess. I mean, I don’t know. I hope it won’t lead to anything!’
“Every sort of breach of order, deviation or departure from rule, depressed him. If one of the other cast members was late for rehearsal or if we heard about some other actor who was arrested for driving drunk or if he saw a guy two-timing his girlfriend, Jon Lovitz was much disturbed, and said he hoped that it wouldn’t lead to anything. At rehearsals he simply oppressed us with how careful he was, and how sure he was that everyone else’s carelessness would drive them into ruin.
“He hoped that everyone would settle down. He hoped that the network wouldn’t find out about this scandal or that one; that the featured player who was gambling too much would get a talking-to, or that the one with a drug problem would be forced into rehab. And, do you know, by his sighs, his despondency, his downcast face, he crushed us all, and we gave way, started to see the problems in the same way he did, and eventually bounced those people from the show.
“Jon Lovitz had a strange way of visiting your apartment. He would come over, sit down, and remain silent, as though he were carefully inspecting something. He would sit like this in silence for an hour or two and then go away. This he called ‘maintaining good relations with his colleagues’; and it was obvious that coming to see us and sitting there was tiresome to him, and that he came to see us simply because he considered it his duty. We were afraid of him. Even Lorne Michaels was afraid of him. Would you believe it? We were all brave people, all young, all successful, but this little guy, with his rain boots and his umbrella, had the whole show under his thumb for years! Show? He had our lives. Our girlfriends didn’t drink too much at parties for fear he’d hear of it. Under the influence of people like Jon Lovitz we got into the way of being afraid of everything. People were afraid to speak their mind, afraid to write down their thoughts, afraid to be foolish, afraid to help others . . .”
Jack Nicholson cleared his throat, meaning to say something, but first took a drag on his cigarette, gazed at the moon, and then said, with pauses:
“Yes, people can seem brave enough when you talk to them . . . but put one of those types in their midst, and they’ll show their true colors soon enough . . . that’s just how it is.”
“For a while, Jon Lovitz lived in the same apartment building as I did,” Adam Sandler went on, “on the same floor, in fact, down the hall from me. We often saw each other, and I knew how he lived when he was at home. And at home it was the same story: pajamas, sometimes even a little cap he wore to bed, blinds on the windows, bolts on the door, every kind of restriction you can imagine. He had dietary restrictions like you wouldn’t believe. It wasn’t that he was vegetarian. That would have been too easy. He had lists and lists of what he could and couldn’t eat. And though there was a young assistant on the show who liked him and offered to cook meals he could eat, he was worried people would think it was inappropriate, and instead he searched until he found an older man, a Jamaican guy named Clive who had never been high. Can you imagine? A Jamaican who had never touched a joint? You’d go over there and Clive would be in the kitchen, wearing a bright white apron. Jon Lovitz wo
uld always mutter the same thing: ‘Such a small island, but there are so many of them.’
“Jon Lovitz had a little bedroom like a box; his bed had curtains. When he went to bed he covered his head over; it was hot and stuffy; there was a droning noise coming from the VCR or something and a clanking from the kitchen. He felt frightened under there. He worried about an electrical fire, or that Clive would come in and murder him, and he had troubled dreams all night, and in the morning, when we went together to work, he was depressed and tired, and it was evident that the show, with all its ego and its competition, was something he dreaded, and that even walking to work with me bothered a man of his solitary temperament.
“ ‘Everyone wants to be seen,’ he used to say, as though trying to find an explanation for his depression. ‘It’s sickening.’
“And then the man afraid of his VCR, this man in a case—would you believe it?—got himself a beautiful girlfriend and almost married her.”
Jack Nicholson turned slowly.
“Yeah?” he said. “Sounds unlikely.”
“That’s an understatement. There was a new guy on the cast, Chris Kattan, and he had a sister, Polly. He was a short, dark young man with big eyes and hands. He looked vaguely like a monkey, and whenever there were monkeys in skits, he played them. His sister was taller, well-made, with black eyebrows and red cheeks, but she was energetic in the same way as her brother, always singing and laughing. You didn’t even really have to make a joke, just cock an eyebrow at her, and she’d let loose with a ringing laugh. When Chris Kattan started with us, Lorne Michaels, who ran the show, threw a party. That was the custom. We weren’t sure if Polly was Chris Kattan’s friend or girlfriend, and when we found out she was his sister, she laughed that loud laugh like she was getting away with something. She was a bright light that season, and there weren’t too many. She would dance crazy dances, sing songs she made up on the spot. She should have been in the cast instead of her brother. She fascinated all of us, even Jon Lovitz. He sat down by her and said with a little smile: