A Child across the Sky

by Jonathan Carroll

  What was so amazing about Max was his good nature. He and Wyatt were good friends, and apparently Max had always wanted to be an actor but had never had the courage to try. The disease pushed him toward it, and besides being one of the founding members of our group, he was also one of the great cheerleaders and spirit lifters.

  But, like all of them, he knew what constant pain and fear were and his acting displayed them. Recently, when I'd asked Max and Wyatt to do a scene from Waiting for Godot, his performance was so reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin at his saddest and most beautiful that it made me cry.

  Wyatt got me onto the photography books. One day he handed me one by someone named Umbo.

  "I don't know exactly what I mean, but I think we should make it look and feel like this."

  The first photographs were surreal black-and-white still lifes or portraits of women with black lips and bobbed hair, very Louise Brooks. Nothing special. But when I got to the middle of the book it was immediately clear what Finky Linky was talking about.

  In the late 1920s this Umbo had taken a haunting series of pictures of show-window mannequins. Using their exaggerated facial expressions and a kind of Expressionist lighting, the photographer had caught something both shadowy and compelling about these mundane figures.

  But there was more. A few pages on, Umbo had done another series on a clown named Grock: Grock putting on his makeup, Grock's violin half out of its case, Grock in full costume with a cigarette in his mouth. The power of these pictures was the dust-in-the-corners, bare-bulb sadness of Grock the man's life. We have no idea if this clown is successful, but even if he is you wouldn't trade with him for anything. No matter how many laughs or coins he puts in his pockets, he always comes back to these small dressing rooms with soiled wallpaper and mirrors with his own picture stuck in them (as if to remind himself who he is supposed to be).

  Besides the expected horror of Bloodstone, Wyatt wanted the still, almost-real, almost-threatening quality of the mannequins and the yellow sadness of an old clown with a cigarette in his mouth.

  Wyatt was right, and that vision led me excitedly to other photographers of the period: Kertesz, Paul Strand, Brassai. But I kept coming back to Umbo and his Grock.

  Almost every day I put in the tapes Phil had sent me before he died to see if they would say more, but there was never anything. However, I must have watched my mother's death twenty times. I grew to know every detail, the few words she spoke to the man in the next seat, the small spot on her skirt. . . . It was never comforting to see, not even the twentieth time. I'd been wrong to think if my questions about her death were answered I would feel more at peace with it.

  I watched my own films too. It had been years since I'd made them, but generally they held up. Would I have changed parts? Yes, but I'd honestly forgotten so much that when I saw them again and realized how poignant and funny they were, I was proud. There are different kinds of pride, but being able to look back on something you did and know it's still good or important is the best.

  I also watched Phil's video The Circus on Fire and many episodes of The Finky Linky Show. Wyatt started to look at the first with me, but it made him depressed and he left the room.

  Sasha asked why I was watching so much TV. The only answer I had was that something was there but I couldn't figure out what – yet.

  The studio lent me a camera, three video machines, and three televisions. When I had them set up at Sasha's, I'd often put three things on at once to see if I could find what I was looking for. No luck. In the end I felt a little like Lyndon Johnson when he was President, watching the news on three separate channels.

  "Christ! What's all that?"

  Sasha came into the house with bulging armfuls of grocery bags.

  "There's lots more in the car. Would you help?"

  "What's going on?"

  "Finky Linky and I decided we're going to have a dinner party tomorrow."

  "Tomorrow! That's short notice."

  "I know you hate socializing, Weber, but you like all the people who are coming, so please don't run away." She stopped putting groceries away and counted off on her fingers. "Dominic and his wife, Max, Sean, and James, Wyatt, you, and me. Eight. Will you make your potato salad?"

  "How come a party?"

  She took a deep breath. "Because I'm sick of sadness. Wyatt said it's time we laughed some more, and he's right. We even bought a Best of The Supremes tape so we can dance if we want. Okay, Baby Love?"

  "Okay. Did you buy lots of bacon? I'll need that for the potato salad."

  Finky Linky walked in with more bags. "We did not buy bacon and we forgot sour cream. You're elected to go, Weber. Get you away from those fucking television sets for a while." He held out the car keys, but I said I'd walk.

  "Has everyone said they'd come?"

  "Yes. We called them this morning. We knew you'd have to come if they all said yes."

  "Come on, I'm not that antisocial."

  "Really? When was the last time you went out?"

  "I went to your birthday party, Wyatt!"

  "Yes, six months ago. You've become such a recluse in New York that the only time we ever see you is at rehearsal."

  "It's like Phil before he died."

  Both of us looked at Sasha. Her last sentence drifted slowly across the kitchen like a well-made paper airplane. I remembered once saying about Strayhorn, "He wanted to be famous. He wanted to be left alone." I'd already had my fame. It was like a too-sweet dessert. Did I also want to be left alone? No sane person wants to be left alone in any real sense.

  "Don't fall into that, Weber. Let the people who love you see you now and then."

  An ice-cream bar slid across the counter to me. "We even bought your favorite disgusting ice cream, so you have to come."

  The market was jumping with after-work shoppers. The place was so large it took fifteen minutes to find the things I'd come for. I was standing at the express checkout line, trying to read the headline on the week's TV Guide, when a voice behind me said, "Word is, you're making a new movie."

  I didn't know the voice, and when I turned I didn't know the person: a woman with a nothing face and pulled-back blond hair. But Los Angeles is a friendly town and more often than not, if people know who you are, they speak as if you're old acquaintances. There wasn't much else I could do, standing there with my bacon and sour cream.

  Radiating a new "I'm not antisocial" charm, I said, "Not really a whole one. Just helping out on a friend's."

  She had four cans of whipped cream and four cans of deodorant. Something was up in her life. When she spoke, everything came out sounding like an accusation. "I heard you're working on a horror movie."

  "Something like that, yes."

  "Another one?"

  "Another? I've never made a horror film."

  Smirking as if she knew better, she accused me, "You mean you never made one all-out. Only little pieces here and there. Because horror movies don't win Oscars, do they? Come on, move, huh? I want to get out of here."

  When I got home, we had a ball preparing for the party. Wyatt put on the Supremes tape full blast and we danced around while we cooked, set the table, cleaned the house, discussed. At midnight, Sasha decided we needed balloons, but not tomorrow – now. We got into the car and drove around until we found an all-night drugstore that sold balloons. Then we were hungry, but Wyatt said the only place to go for a real hamburger at night was a place in his old neighborhood.

  No matter how old or jaded you are, there will always be something exciting and cool about cruising around at three in the morning with a bunch of good friends. All the old duds are asleep but you're still awake, the windows are down, the radio's glowing green and playing great music. Life's given you a few extra hours to horse around. If you don't grab them, they aren't usually offered again for a while.

  "I want to be fifteen again and still a virgin!" Sasha had her head out the window, and the wind whipped her hair.

  "At fifteen the only thing you tho
ught about was losing your virginity!"

  "You know where it happened? On a beach in Westport, Connecticut. There were three other couples around making out, and a full moon shining down so they could see everything. When it was over, I was so scared and ashamed I ran right into the water with all my clothes on."

  "Scared of what?"

  "That that was all there was to it. 'You mean this is it?' That's what was supposed to make the world go round? Shit! Your turn, Wyatt."

  "I'm driving. Weber's next."

  "Barbara Gilly. Affectionately known in our town as The Tunnel.'"

  "You slept with a tunnel?"

  "Everybody slept with her. We did it on the hill behind John Jay High School. I used a rubber I'd had in my wallet for six months. You can imagine how comfortable and exciting that was. And you?"

  "My cousin Nancy."

  Both Sasha and I cried out, "You slept with your cousin?"

  We drove another hour, telling old secrets and funny stories. It was like a late-night bullshit session in college, when you felt so close and wise, sure you'd remember these people and these discussions for the rest of your life.

  When we got home we gave each other big kisses and hugs because the evening had been such fun. I kept smiling and chuckling as I washed up and got into bed, thinking about some of the things that had been said.

  Sometime later, just after the first morning birds started to sing, the door opened and I turned in time to see Sasha standing there. Gesturing to close the door, I held up the blanket for her to come in with me. She was there in an instant, sliding close, naked under a thin silk nightgown.

  She took my hand and ran it across her stomach, up over her breasts, up the thin curve of her neck. Opening her mouth, she slipped my fingers into it and started licking them.

  I took the hand away and caressed her face, her shoulders, her arms. Neither of us talked, although when we'd been lovers in Europe, years before, we'd always said things and made lots of noise.

  But tonight needed to be different. We weren't here as lovers but as two longtime friends who loved each other and had had the luck to share a wonderful night together.

  We fucked in silence, trying not to make even the slightest sound. The secrecy made it hotter, more exciting.

  When we were finished and the early light lit the floor, she lay half across my stomach, her breath tickling my chest. Loving the feel of her there, I whispered, "I wish I'd been that guy in Westport."

  She lifted her head and grinned. "Really? You wish you'd been my first?"

  "Not so much that. I don't know if I would've done it any better. But I would have . . . gone swimming with you. I wouldn't have let you go so easily."

  She touched her head to my chest and slowly got up. Standing, she tried to find where the armholes were in the knotted tangle of her nightgown. Her hair was fluffed and flying out in all directions and she looked as beautiful as I had ever seen her.

  Giving up on the nightgown, she threw it over her shoulder and sat down again on the bed. I took her hand.

  "Will you always be my friend, Sasha?"

  "I promise."

  "Even if we don't do this again?"

  "We think differently about it. I could be happily married for twenty years and still have no hesitation about going to bed with you. I love you, Weber. I sleep with the people I love."

  "What would you say to your husband?"

  "I don't know. Maybe nothing."

  Leaving the room with the gown held carelessly in front of her, she was a Bonnard painting: faint pink, cream, curves, a small backward wave goodbye.

  I caught Dominic and his wife, Mickey, getting out of their car.

  "What the hell are you doing, Weber, filming this? Wait a minute!" He stood up, ran his hands through his hair, and straightened his Hawaiian shirt. "Is this a shirt or what? Mickey got it for me. Okay, now you can roll 'em."

  We started around to the back of the house where the others were.

  "What's with the camera?"

  "I'm trying to get used to using one again."

  "You're going to film the party?"

  "Part of it."

  Some American must have invented barbecues. I know mankind has been grilling meat over a fire for tens of thousands of years, but Americans made it into a religion.

  For all the words they wrote about my pictures, no film critic ever noticed how in every one of them I stuck in a barbecue somewhere. Even in Babyskin it is the American visitor who shows the old people how to do it "right," thus unwittingly bringing on their fall.

  Meals cooked in the open, food eaten with the fingers, smoke, grease. Paper plates, loud voices; if you don't have a napkin use the back of your hand. Even if it's only family, things are louder and more raucous usually, freer. People get sexy or they drink too much; they cry.

  After introductions were made and everyone had a drink, Wyatt suggested we play Time Bomb, the game he'd invented and made famous on his show. I got paper and pencils while Sasha took people's orders for how they wanted their steaks done.

  Dominic and Max were so fast and clever with their answers that none of us had a chance after the first round. I was the second to "blow up," which was fine because all I really wanted to do was film the exchange between the two men: Max weakly curved into the pillows of his wheelchair, Dominic up on the edge of his seat like a football center about to snap the ball.

  They were still at it by the time the medium rares were served and Sasha was forking the mediums off the fire. Wyatt said they should call it a draw and both men agreed.

  "You're the first guy I ever played that game with who knew what he was doing, Max."

  "You should see him play at rehearsals." Sean waved a piece of bread to make her point.

  Dominic looked at me. "You play Time Bomb with your actors?"

  "Say that again, Dominic, but look at Max this time."

  "Weber, we're having dinner conversation. Will you put the camera down?"

  All of them grumbled he was right, so I did as I was told, but under protest because it had been such a pleasure. Sometimes we used a video camera in New York, but that was like shooting game films for athletes; we watched them to see what mistakes we'd made. The stuff I was shooting now was only "family" and fun and addictive for someone who liked to look through a camera anyway. I had an idea in the back of my mind to make a little film of the night's festivities and then send copies of it to everyone there.

  "What's the newest on Blow Dry, Dominic?"

  "Wait a minute. I got to get some more of these baked beans. Who made them? We gotta get the recipe, Mickey."

  "Max."

  "Max? Shit, you make beans like this and play Time Bomb too?"

  "Dominic?"

  "What?"

  "Blow Dry?"

  "Oh, yeah. Nothing! Creepiest thing about B.D. was he had no vices. No girlfriends, didn't gamble, drank a beer once a month. Usually when someone disappears, you try to find out if they bought a ticket to Vegas or Acapulco. This guy didn't do those things."

  "He just scared people."

  "Yup! And that's the only thing we have to go on. He didn't have vices, but he had a fuck-load of enemies. There are a number of people down at the department who think B.D. might have seen his last Dodger game."

  "Does that bother you?"

  He wiped his mouth with a napkin. "Normally it would, but Charlie Feet . . . Christ, if you even called him Charlie by accident he'd give you a look that'd make your toes curl."

  A that's-the-end-of-that-subject silence fell over us – until James laughed loudly. "Yeah, but he would've made a gr-r-eat Bloodstone!"

  Dessert was Mickey Scanlan's Poodle Cake, which was an astounding piece of work. She told us not to ask the ingredients or else we wouldn't eat it, but no one had any trouble doing that.

  After two pieces and a cup of Sasha's weak coffee, I picked up the camera and started filming again. Going from person to person, I asked them to guess what was in the cake.

>   Wyatt smiled at the camera while squeezing chewed dessert through his teeth. I moved on quickly.

  Sean said chocolate and prunes and shrugged. James said chocolate and raisins. Dominic said chocolate and Blow Dry.

  Mickey threw her spoon at him but laughed as hard as the rest of us. I panned from face to face, going in as close as I could on each, then pulling back and moving to the next but trying to catch all their faces before the first real waves of laughter had crested and begun to fall.

  When I got to Max I thought he was laughing so hard he had lost all control and simply dropped his plate and fork into his lap.

  But it was worse, and that moment of recognition was where one of those feared animals I spoke of before suddenly rose in me and leapt.

  For seconds, long important seconds, I knew something was terribly wrong with my friend Max Hampson, but I did nothing – besides filming him. I needed a few more seconds of the camera at my eye before I could help him. Before I would help him. That's right – before I would help him.

  Wyatt yelled, "Hey, what's the matter with Max? Look at him! He's sick!"

  I dropped the camera but way too late. In the following chaos, no one knew what I'd done. But did it matter? I knew.

  Driving to the studio the next morning, I saw her standing at a bus stop.

  "Why aren't I surprised to see you?"

  "Max is going to be all right, Weber. I promise. You didn't do anything bad."

  "I didn't help."

  "You were doing your film. Don't you understand yet that's the most important thing you can do? If it's good in the end, then everything else will be okay. I can help you now. I've been allowed. Since you came back here, I've been able to do some things. Max will be okay."

  "Prove it."

  "Call the hospital. Get Dr. William Casey and ask him about Max's condition. I'm not lying, Weber."

  "What about Blow Dry?"

  "He's dead. He was killed in east Los Angeles by a gang called the Little Fish. They'll find his body today."