It was a woman. She was almost naked. Only bra and underpants. Both were white, and I could see her dark nipples and pubic hair through the thin material. The body was frozen in rigor mortis – one hand cupped under a breast (thus the crooked elbow), the other held rigidly against her side. Her face was completely covered with what looked like mucus. After pulling her up onto the grass, I bent down and tried to wipe some of the scum from her face. It all came off in one big shiny piece.
I didn't know her but even in death she was very good-looking, her body especially. What else is a twelve-year-old to think? There it all was in one living dream in front of me – sex (I'd never seen the real thing before), death, honor, excitement Who she was isn't important nor is how she got there. The point of this is to tell you how disappointed I was when Geoff came back and I began to hear the wail of a police siren. For one of the only times in my entire life, I had everything I wanted in front of me. Everything I knew, wanted – was – had reached consummation here. In a few minutes (I can still hear Geoff Pierson's sneakers running hard across the grass toward me) life would take it – take her – back into its hands and I would be only me again; twelve, confused, hot, thrilled.
If possible, freeze that moment in your mind. Freeze the look of greed and desire on my face. For the only time in my life, I knew the greatest secret of all – the dead love you.
We'd been on the set of Burn the Gay Nuns! for only an hour before I'd had enough and went for some coffee. If Strayhorn had been alive, what we were doing would have been a good subject for his Esquire column. The people on the set of the film were named Larry and Rich, Lorna and Debbie. They were professionals and went about their jobs with brisk efficiency. When Debbie was about to have her clothes (and head) ripped off by a samurai-sword-wielding priest (recently back from the dead), she stood patiently for minutes in her underwear while two chatty women sewed a rip-away habit around her scrumptious figure. Phil's article could have been about a day in the life of the filming of a Grade D horror/sex film. Or an interview with "star" Douglas Mann, who walked around with his second head under his arm, eating one gooey French cruller after another.
Since films like Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street became such smashes, people have been trying to make similar low-rent slash-and-gore junk that sells like potato chips to the crowd that fucks at the drive-in or rents four films a day at the video store.
The motion pictures I'd made were certainly not calm affairs (especially the last one), but looking at the script for Burn the Gay Nuns! made me feel like I'd done The Pinky Linky Show.
A few nights before on television, we'd watched a program about the popularity of horror movies. They began by showing stomachable clips from the most popular video in the United States at the time. Titled Faces of Death, it was a badly put together feature-length documentary of people actually dying in front of a camera: suicides jumping out windows, a man being eaten by an alligator (his dropped camera took it all in), firing squad, electric chair. An out-and-out snuff film you could rent for – bucks most anywhere.
Later in the program, a twelve-year-old girl who had just seen something called I Spit on Your Grave was asked why she watched things like that. She beamed and said, "I love all the blood!" That was really her answer. When I was a kid, seeing The Tingler with Vincent Price had given me big nightmares for months.
Speaking of Finky Linky, his arrival on the set caused a happy furor. Actors with melted eyeballs like lava running down their faces or hatchets buried in their backs came up for autographs or only to say hello.
Wyatt was Finky's charming, wacko self and, as a big favor to the director, even did a five-second cameo appearance in the inevitable "walking dead" scene.
What were we doing there? My excuse was it happened to be the only horror film being made in Los Angeles at the time. I hadn't directed a movie in over two years. If my next work was going to be horror – Phil and Pinsleepe's wish fulfilled – I wanted to see what these guys did. Wyatt said he was along because he'd always wanted to see how shit was made.
What I'd seen in our hour on the set was disappointing. They were using a new, more sophisticated camera from Austria, but other than that the scene was a thoroughly familiar one. It reminded me of why I'd left this life.
Movie people, even the most invisible gaffer or best boy, have a self-importance that is understandable because everyone seems to want to be in the movies. It's an interesting phenomenon: Ask ten people if they want to be President, and surely some of them will say no. Ask them if they want to be in the movies in some capacity, and you can bet most if not all will say yes. The irony is, filmmaking generally has to be one of the most boring ways to spend a day. Nothing is done quickly, and everything is done four, five, six . . . endless times. There is not much sense of community either, because everyone's task on a set is so specific and time-consuming that you do your job right up until a shot is made, then run like hell to get going on the next one.
But as is true with so many jobs, the consumer only sees the final product, and that is so glamorous and exciting it's hard not to want to have a go at it.
Standing with a coffee in hand, I looked back at the set and remembered my last set: how, when filming Wonderful, I frequently had the feeling I was watching my life more than living it. It was a haunting, ominous thing to experience and took time to go away. Part of it returned the day I heard Phil was dead. As mentioned, some of my first thoughts after I had the news was to picture his death cinematically. That could be attributed to shock, but not many months before, I was seeing everything I knew through the lens of an inner camera. I Am a Camera is a wonderful title, but isn't healthy when it's your life. Looking at the set of this film made me remember my last days in Hollywood.
"Mr. Gregston? Weber Gregston?"
I turned around and saw a nice-looking thirtyish woman. "Yes?"
"You don't know me, but I sort of know you. My name is Linda Webster. I did wardrobe for Phil Strayhorn on the Midnight films?" She put out a tentative hand to shake. Without really looking, I reached for it but a second later yelped. Looking down, I saw a big needle sticking into my thumb.
She snatched it out and stuck it back into a pin cushion she was wearing on her wrist – the giveaway sign of a person doing costumes. "I'm so sorry! I always forget . . . I'm sorry."
"It's okay, it's okay. Really!" Her expression was so stricken and concerned I felt more protective of her feelings than my beaming thumb. "Come on. Let's have a coffee." I held up mine.
"You were in Europe awhile, huh?"
"What do you mean?"
"Europeans say 'Let's have a coffee.' Americans say 'Let's have coffee.' Singular and plural, depending on which side of the ocean you're from. How long were you there?"
"About a year."
"Tha-a-at's right, I remember! Phil talked about you a lot and was always wondering where you were that day. He used to bring your postcards onto the set to show us. They were really funny.
"What do you think of his stunt? Did he tell you what he's doing now?"
"What he's doing? He's dead."
She smirked and shook her head. "That's not what I hear."
"Lol . . . Linda, is it? Linda, I'm staying with Sasha Makrianes. She found the body. He's dead, you know?"
"I know Sasha. She found a man with his head blown off, but that's all."
"Linda, what are you telling me? He was my best friend."
She had the eyes of someone who thinks they're more cunning than they are. Yet those eyes also said she knew something, maybe a secret, that I didn't. Her expression said she was going to stretch it out as far as it would go.
Finky Linky came up from behind and put a hand on my shoulder. "Hi, Linda! I didn't know you were working on this."
She made an exaggerated pout and stuck out her bottom lip. "I saw you before and said hello, Wyatt, but you were too busy with Debbie and the others."
He made a Finky Linky laugh and, speaking in the famous vo
ice, said, "I saw you, but I told you: We've got to stop meeting here like this."
"Tell Wyatt what you just told me."
She shrugged. "I said everybody knows Phil isn't dead. That the thing was a whole big ugly setup."
The Finky voice disappeared and Wyatt's came back, soft but on edge. "What are you talking about?"
"He's been showing up all over town since it happened. I mean, come on, Wyatt, what about that shootout at the cemetery? Do you really think that was spontaneous? The whole thing's a setup."
"Where was he seen?"
"Someone saw him having a hotdog at Tommy's, Walt Plotkin saw him on Melrose at L.A. Eyeworks, I don't know – I've heard a lot of people saw him in different places."
"Doing what?"
"Hanging around. Drinking, eating dinner. Normal things."
I looked at him. "Sounds to me like a National Enquirer headline: 'Philip Strayhorn Found Alive and Shopping on Melrose Avenue.'"
"But it would explain your tapes, wouldn't it? Instead of being tapes from the dead."
"Wyatt, for Christ's sake, do you really believe that bullshit? They say it about every celebrity who ever died! Elvis lives. JFK lives. Howard Hughes."
"Bullshit? Thank you very much!" Linda turned and walked away.
Neither of us paid attention. Wyatt counted things off on his fingers. "It would make complete sense, Weber. A horrible, melodramatic sense. The little girl, an angel messenger, if you please, comes with warnings from God not to make these movies. And we know he didn't want to do them anymore. And we know he was very much on edge, maybe even sick. And it wouldn't be the first time this has happened out here. Either as a publicity thing or because someone cracks and winds up in Lu-Lu Land."
"What about Sasha?"
"What about her? Somehow Phil knew she was sick before she did."
"Come on! What about her pregnancy? Did he know that too?"
"You can tell when certain women are pregnant by the look on their faces. That's nothing new."
"What about my tattoo, then?"
He took my coffee and had a sip. "That may be your magic and not his, Weber. We haven't even talked about that yet. Remember, you were the one who went to Rondua, not Phil."
6
Whenever a dream comes true, you take one step closer to God. But the closer you are, the better you see him, and he may not be at all what you imagined.
I fell in love with Cullen James the way I'd always wanted to fall in love: with the joyous enthusiasm and devotion of a teenager, the grateful appreciation of experience. I wanted her the moment I met her. She was someone to fight for, someone to long for. I spoke to her too fast, wanting her to know everything. Her smile said she understood my hurry. My dream came true.
We never went to bed. I never tasted her thin mouth. She was happily married to a man I had no quarrel with, a man who was capable and strong and essential for her. I wasn't, and that is where my dream came true too much. I'd finally found what I wanted, an invaluable coin in the street, but there was no image on the other side of that coin. Cullen wanted a friend, not someone else to share her life with.
Why Danny James and not Weber Gregston? An array of reasons, some of which you'll find in her book Bones of the Moon. But what I remember best (and most painfully) was a conversation we once had where I asked her that very question. Why him and not me?
"Because you and I drive each other crazy too much, Weber. I drive myself crazy enough with all my nervousness and eccentricities. You and I fan each other's flames. Right now that's okay – it's wonderful! – but we're only just beginning. You always smell good and are on your best behavior at the beginning of an affair. But what happens later when you know from one glimpse the other's in a shitty mood and has no way to get out of it? Or the best way to retaliate is to stay silent for – days? You and I would do that to each other. We'd fight too long and be mean, even when we didn't really want to. We're too alike, Weber. The person who drives me craziest is me. What happens when two me's or two you's get into bed at night? Sure, we make great love and have the best conversations in the world, but we also know the tenderest parts, like karate masters. All the most dangerous pressure points. Hit them here and they die in a second. Hit them there and destroy their ego.
"Danny gives me peace. It's not a dull peace, either. We balance each other. Isn't that what we should be doing – looking for balance?"
"How do you know all this without even trying?"
"Because I'm afraid I'd like living with you too much, and then I'd find out way too late it was a terrible mistake ever to try."
"That sounds cowardly."
"Being safe and being loved is not cowardice. We'd love each other, but there's no safety between us, Weber. We'd be flinging each other across trapezes without a net. That's all right when you're young and have nothing to lose but your heart, but when you're older and know your heart is only a piece of the whole, then you pull back and say I'd rather have a family than the air. I'd rather lie on my back on the earth and look up at the stars than try to fly to them with little chance of getting there."
"You think we'd have a chance of that?"
"Of course. But only a small one, and I don't want to gamble anymore. I have a good man, a baby, and a pretty charmed life right now. What am I supposed to do, put all those chips on the table in hopes of winning a jackpot? How many jackpots are won? How many people walk away from the table rich?"
That conversation isn't in her book, but the reason I remember it so clearly is because that night I had my first Rondua dream.
What was Rondua? Take a child's perception and experience in a toy store at six or seven years old. Where the stuffed animals are as big and all-encompassing as skyscrapers; where you want to see and touch everything, even when it frightens or repels. That was Rondua. A place where dreams you once had, creatures and situations that knew you (yes, situations knew you in Rondua) all returned to visit, instruct, astonish. But those were only part. It wasn't only things you knew but a world where new wonder and surprise were common currency and certainty had no place.
People dream of strange lands all the time, but the difference here was Cullen James and I dreamed the same view, saw the same wondrous landscapes and creatures, and could thus compare notes and draw maps the next day.
What did it mean and why did it happen? Nervously, I asked a number of people, but the explanation that sounded truest came from Venasque, Phil's shaman and our one-time neighbor with the pig. The only proof I knew of the old man's power was Strayhorn's unequivocal belief in him, which didn't remove my skepticism, however. But when the Rondua dreams came more and more frequently, I thought it could do no harm to ask him.
"You know the joke about the thermos bottle? A bunch of researchers are interviewing people to hear what they think is man's greatest invention. Someone naturally says the wheel, another the airplane, the alphabet . . . then one guy says, The thermos bottle.'
"Thermos bottle? What are you talking about?
"The guy says, 'Look, in the winter when it's ten below out, I fill my thermos bottle with hot soup and go to a football game. Two hours later it's still cold as hell out, but when I open up the bottle there's hot soup in there. Right?
"'Okay. Then in the middle of summer, when it's ninety out, I fill that same bottle with ice-cold lemonade. Two hours later when I'm dying of the heat, I open it up and there's still ice-cold lemonade in there. I got one question for you: How does it know?'"
Venasque took a handful of M&M's and handed them to the pig.
"I don't understand your analogy."
"Love is the greatest invention of human beings, Weber. It's such a great invention that man made it and brought it to life, but then it got so strong and smart it took itself out of our hands and now runs its own affairs. It's like that thermos bottle – It knows. How it knows can be applied all over the place.
"You want this woman and you know she's the right one for you, but it just can't be. So love takes over.
If you can't have her, you can know her better than any other person on earth does, including her nice-guy husband. You can't sleep together, but you can 'know' her better than any hundred nights together would ever teach you.
"What's the place called? Rondua? Enjoy it, Weber. Even the bad parts. Love's giving you a present. The two of you."
As suddenly as they came, the dreams left. According to her book, Cullen thought I stopped dreaming because she put her hand on my forehead and said a secret word. I think they stopped because, like some kind of deep alpine tunnel that goes on for ten or twelve miles, I'd gone into and through my improvident love for her and finally come out the other side. By the time she touched my head and said that word, 'Koukounaries,' I'd gotten through this tunnel and emerged, blinking and disoriented but safe in another country.
I would always love her, but not with the same unhealthy need and hope as before. That was suicidal. If Venasque was right and Love had given us Rondua, losing it as I did meant a loss too of the damaging obsession I had for Cullen James, which had badly affected whole months of my life.
A couple of hours after Wyatt mentioned Rondua, Danny James called to see how things were going. I wanted to talk about the videotapes and the tattoo moving off my back, but Sasha was home and I didn't want her to hear any of this yet. Wyatt was the only one who knew the whole story, and we'd agreed not to tell her anything until we were more sure ourselves. What if Strayhorn was alive? Or Pinsleepe really was an angel come to earth to right his wrongs? Sasha was pregnant and full of cancer. When I said Wyatt had cancer too, he blithely brushed it off, saying, yes, but he wasn't pregnant. What's more, he did believe in impossibilities like angels and atoning for a dead man's sins. Sasha didn't, which made it difficult in case other queer things would have to be done to resolve these matters.
"Danny, you never told me why Phil went to New York the last week before he died. Would you now? I think it's important."
"He was with a little girl named Pinsleepe. About eight or nine. Said she was his niece, but I don't know. That was the first thing that worried me. The two of them were in and out of town a lot, because every time I called I had to leave a message. When I saw them they'd just come back from New Jersey."
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