by Bruce Wagner
“While spouse and handicapped child were generously provided for in perpetuity, those selfsame handpicked men thought it cruel, both to ‘the widow’ and to them—the triumvirate—to be forced into telling her lies of omission. The ex cathedra whims of their boss now seemed punishing and unsavory, but, alas, the contract tied their hands; if they dared reveal to anyone the peculiar actuality of the situation, well, the draconian provisions of the signed agreements would trigger immediate termination, along with financial penalties designed to be ruinous. My heart went out to Mrs. MacKlatchie when Sir told me of the numerous detectives she hired to find him—if he should ever leave me, I wondered what desperate measures I would resort to!—but their efforts came to naught. Though it’s probably more accurate to say that whatever she paid them, her husband increased by multiples sufficient to allow the investigators to sidestep their professional ethics and report back to their client empty-handed. They even returned her fee.
“A final section of the covenant had a bewildering stipulation that you’ll come to see as the acme of his achievement, the jewel in the crown, the bell tower of the cathedral. In simplest terms, it stated that the entire edifice would collapse—the contracts he’d so meticulously crafted be rendered null and void—in the moment he chose to reveal, whether by deliberation or in error, to any person or persons, in writing or in speech, that he, Franklin Tannenbaum MacKlatchie, was the sole legal owner of Mandry’s Gastropub LLC. In the event of such a seemingly innocuous occurrence, all controlling interests in FM Industries would immediately cede to the triumvirate, and its founder be permanently ousted. By the time those trusted (if greatly discomposed) servants read that clause, they knew in their hearts that the man they once revered and loved, and who so brilliantly mentored them, was completely insane. Yet they had no choice but to follow his instructions to the letter. As said, the charter he drafted was insuperable—a castle keep of elegant logic whose divine proportions, akin to those of a late Beethoven string quartet, made it an exemplar and holy grail of Golden Ratio jurisprudence.
“But let’s get back to Mandry’s. When he took possession, not only did Mr. MacKlatchie insist on retaining the manager and the bouncer—the very men who’d spurred his momentous transfiguration—but lavished them both with substantial raises and benefits as an incentive against their finding other work. With that hedge in place, he was now ready to implement an unthinkably bold, unthinkably strange artifice. I’ll sketch it for you now: he began to drink, heavily, in his own place of business. In two weeks’ time, my guru became a failed pickup artist, a lewd and lascivious nuisance to the lady patrons—a tacky replica of the troublemaker Marcus initially mistook him for. Now remember, the bouncer was unaware that Mr. MacKlatchie was in fact his employer and benefactor, and only familiar with him as the once outraged gentleman who in response to a false accusation—Marcus’s!—had sued the pub and lost, a falsehood, of course, which had been artfully publicized. And by the way, the backstory concocted for the Sir’s ‘drunkard’ persona was that after a protracted bankruptcy and divorce, the failed defamation suit had driven him to the tipping point of sanity.
“What followed may seem hard to believe. You see, the bouncer felt somewhat responsible for what had befallen him—so, instead of ejecting the poor soul, he opened his heart and gave gentle counsel, looking out for Mr. MacKlatchie as he would a brother. And the manager did the same! They even offered up their homes for sanctuary. After a month of such ministrations, Frank MacKlatchie admitted to them that his drinking had in fact become unmanageable and resolved to go on the wagon, thanks to their great kindness and care. Soon after, he arranged through intermediaries to fire them both—without malice, of course—he simply felt it was time to ‘graduate’ into the wide world that awaited them outside Mandry’s doors. He endowed each with ‘single-trigger parachutes’ (‘so-called in the parlance,’ said my Sir), settlements large enough to make at least one of the unwitting pair burst into tears. The manager was said to have purchased a six-floor apartment building with his severance . . .
“It was by the design, eventually, that not a single Mandry’s employee remained who knew ‘Frank MacKlatchie,’ either by face or reputation. And for the next few years, my Sir revolved through every hirable position: busboy, bartender, accountant, dishwasher, server, chef. (Managers who balked at this eccentric-seeming game of musical chairs quickly found themselves jobless.) When those roles were exhausted, he came to embody the full array of customers too—cross-dressing, upstyling, and frumpy Fridaying his way through the bar as he took on Everyperson’s passions and longings, celebratory moods and suicidal regrets. Only once did he reflect on the life he’d erased. It was the time Mrs. MacKlatchie drifted in for an Irish coffee, seeking warmth on a snowy, inhospitable night. She was on a final, solitary field trip, in futile search of her long-lost husband, and found herself loitering at ground zero. She came in like a ghost, as if hoping to find one more of her kind. He was ‘playing’ bouncer that night (things had almost come full circle) and she looked straight at him but failed to recognize. Her obliviousness may have been ascribed to a distracted state of mind or the camouflage of beard he’d grown or even the Union Army cap chosen as part of his ‘look,’ but I think she couldn’t see him because Franklin MacKlatchie, simply, was no longer there. You see, by then he was nearly done and for all practical purposes (only purposes of energy remained) had excused himself from this world.
“My guru told me that was an exceptionally difficult night—seeing his wife that way—an encounter that became the ‘period,’ so to speak, on the last sentence of the book he once was. On awakening in his seedy room the next morning, he felt entirely refreshed. He was almost free . . .
“In his last ‘turn,’ he became one of the homeless men often adopted as charms and mascots by places such as Mandry’s. The original gentleman with the job (who never missed a day) had only recently retired by succumbing to hypothermia (he’d been promoted, or ‘kicked upstairs,’ as my teacher put it), which left the much coveted position vacant—and so the soon-to-be-former Frank MacKlatchie eagerly submitted his application. His CV easily prevailed, landing him a corner office on the same square of frozen walkway as his forebear; he lowered himself onto that grimy cardboard with the endgame cocksureness of the lowliest piece in king and pawn versus king. The new hire was accorded privileges commensurate with his predecessor, in other words, punctiliously attended to by kitchen boys bringing soup and bread and fussed over by waitresses many generations removed from the servers who’d made Franklin’s first acquaintance. He knew the moment had come to light the fuse of the clause that would initiate self-destruct. Presently, he began to share with employees, postmen, and passersby—not immodestly but as statement of fact—that ‘I, Franklin T. MacKlatchie,’ happened to be the exclusive owner—and ipso facto proprietor—of that cherished neighborly Gold Coast nugget known as Mandry’s. Of course no one believed him, though his confession, viewed as nothing more than a wild hair in a wig of delusion, did have the effect of attracting even more soup (piping hot) from the minions—and entrées, desserts, blankets, and so forth. The refractory CEO didn’t think it would take long for ‘the principals’ to be informed of the breach, for he was well aware of having been closely watched from the beginning by the designated three who awaited the day of the contract’s sundering as a Christian awaits rapture.
“He had broken it with glee and abandon, because he heard the bells of Silence finally ring! So it was done and he tarried calmly to be routed out. It was during those last days, when Bella was in hospital and myself perambulating, that I befriended him. I did my share of fussing over him too—oh, but he was fussable! When I noticed a sore on his leg that was stubborn to heal I dressed it with ointments. I gave him money and books and sweets and vigorously massaged his legs to ward off the frostbite. (By now, he’d given up even his tiny motel room.) I shared with him my life and current situation—a real chatterbox! But he didn’t seem to
mind. Then one day he said, ‘It’s time for me to leave this place.’ He couldn’t have been clearer but I still wasn’t sure what it meant. Taking my arm for an assist, he rose up. ‘They won’t come looking for me—I’ve broken the contract, you see, I’ve made sure of that. Broke it every day for the last month! Took ’em longer to find out than I thought . . . but now I am certain of it, I’m certain they know.’ He said the men chosen to succeed him had detectives on retainer who did nothing but record and observe his doings round the clock, from close and afar—a constant surveillance whose goal was to catch out the offender as soon as he violated the agreement’s terms. To that end, they had secured hidden audiovisual proof of my Sir’s ‘delusional’ public declarations of ownership. It was of no interest that their quarry bore scant resemblance to the thin, close-shaven, conservatively dressed titan his colleagues once knew, nor did the private eyes (or FM Industries honchos, for that matter) care a whit about the motivations behind his sudden turnabout . . . they had a job to do and now it was done. The board was overjoyed and only too anxious to close this galling, perplexing, unsavory chapter of the conglomerate’s storied history. But the ordeal had taken its toll. The three appointed wise men looked far older than their years, a consequence of being hamstrung and betrayed by that tragicomic figure, a mentor turned capricious madman who for no comprehensible reason had reveled in trampling upon their dignity, dampening their autonomy, and casting dark shadows over their futures and fortunes—a shadow that could now be removed at last.
“They were free now themselves. And that’s what my guru wanted. For everyone to be free.”
Jeremy looked into her eyes. They were cool, blue-green, limpid. So fucking weird and so beautiful she was, and he felt his heart stir. To his chagrin, everything stirred.
“That was seven years ago.” She was smiling at him. “Seven years I’ve been at his side, seven years of wandering and of miracles—the miracle of being in his presence, of listening to him, of loving. I know you must be curious how we live—and the way we sometimes do.” The wink no doubt referred to the house on Malibu Road. “In his worldly wisdom, my guru made certain we’d be amply provided for. ‘Trust in God, but lock your front door.’ Ever hear that saying? One of the codicils of the grand contract he designed created an account with enough monies to make not just a bouncer but a centimillionaire burst into tears!” For some reason, she made herself laugh. “It has been more than enough to take care of us, and will get us where we are going.”
“And where is that?” asked Jeremy.
He almost didn’t want to know. It had all become too heartbreaking.
“To a region known as Summerland. My Sir says we are close now.”
—
She moved to a hotel.
Allegra had a few hundred thousand dollars in an account her wife set up for her years ago. Some of it was money she’d earned herself.
In residence now, at the Four Seasons: footloose, jangly, blackhearted.
Couldn’t reach Jeremy—who else was there?
She felt like an asshole for calling Ginevra a second time—again the cunt didn’t return the call. She wouldn’t, right? Because Dusty owned her, right? If I drop dead tomorrow, she’d help Bunny move on—at $475 an hour, seven-fifty for a house call. Allegra was jolted by a surge of revulsion as she realized how involved the therapist must already be in their business; privy to every nook and cranny of her wife’s revolutionary new love . . . quarterbacking the breakup of their marriage. Their life—
She puked right there on the California King.
She kept getting texts from Dusty to please come home. Home! Why would she even use that shitty word? (Only “love” was shittier.) Maybe Ginevra told her to.
She deleted the messages.
And just lay there, letting all sorts of memories take her.
Allegra ached for her mother . . . but how? Why? It’d been years since she’d had two thoughts about Willow (née Claudia Zabert)—and now she was aching. She hadn’t seen the woman since she was a teenager, living together in that scummy flat. (Hated London but anything was better than the phantasmagoric cesspool of India.) She remembered the pouring rain. She was on her way home and ducked into a gallery for free wine and cheese. The rich painter hit on her—she was forty, Allegra pretended to be nineteen—and that was that. The artist brought her to New York. They lived in a Chelsea loft for a few years and it was cool, it was superfun, it was all good. But the lady was crazy possessive, and Allegra couldn’t keep her panties on.
After they broke up, she did deep-tissue massage—way deep—at fancy hotels (did astrology and crystal readings too). Took solace in her deep, cultish roots . . . Got into some heavy coke, sex, and yoga scenes—dead-eyed pixie, an adventuress, an excitable girl who’d seen too much. Hung with violent and hilarious hermaphrodites; hung with Raëlian sex workers; stayed in Vermont a few months with twins who happened to be lovers, becoming their lover too. (Ironically, they were the daughters of a Twelve Tribes couple who ripened into FREECOG kahunas bent on destroying her alma mater, the Children of God . . . sheesh!) She finally got tired of all the fascist third eye crystal qijong esoteric chakra bullshit and remade herself as a serial au pair. More Upper Yeast Side sexual hijinks ensued. At twenty-three, she fled to California, back to the mountainous commune at Black Bear Ranch where she and Willow lived before that fucked-up kingpin spirited them away. (Some folks she knew as a kid were actually still there.) God, how she loved that land. Human beings always failed you but the land never did. For a few healing years she lived comfortably in her yurt and her skin, like a child again, not a slave-child of some insane erotomaniacal god, but a free child—of river and forest, of mountain, moon, and stars.
An innocent . . .
So many terrible things had been done to her body, especially in the Family when she was so, so young, and when it all got too heavy even for Willow, they escaped from that hell house in the Tenderloin and hid out in Black Bear, fugitives from the lie and the law. Oh, halcyon days . . . why couldn’t they have just stayed? In the Siskiyous, with the good new people, she was safe. As if to expiate all the sins she had sponsored, Willow introduced her daughter to the river. It washed her clean. They skinny-dipped in a glorious Huck Finn swimming hole and she befriended the fishes, tadpoles, and tiny frogs—how they welcomed her! The men of the commune were kind and respectful and left them alone. (She couldn’t even believe men like that existed.) Allegra recalled the path that snaked to the water and how she would run, her mom chasing after—in they’d go, and again she was cleansed. Willow washed her daughter’s hair on the edge of the brook, lathering it to a beehive meringue. Then one day Gridley Wright arrived, the Rasputin of Shiva Lila—Mr. Right!—and wanted Allegra to lay on the bed while he fucked her mother, and Willow just let it happen, like she let everything. He made the girl join them, not that Allegra fought that, because by then she was up for any kind of parental guidance. And it seemed like when she blinked, they’d been stolen away to Bombay . . . Goa . . . Mysore, Kochi, and Kerala—where everything smelled like a gang rape of incense, shit, and death. The grown-ups were freaking and all her little friends were getting sick and disappearing and brand-new monkeymen kept saving and destroying them, saving and destroying, saving and destroying.
So: after she left her half-mad mother in Brixton, after she left her apoplectic painter in New York, after checkered careers as au pair and energyworker, and nostalgic Black Bear sabbatical with restorative old friends—mountains, river, yurt, night stars—she settled in L.A. with a droll, quirky psych nurse from Panorama City whom she met at a Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous meeting. They rented a bungalow off Sawtelle. Allegra worked at Trader Joe’s and at a bonsai nursery on weekends. Five years of that—five years—such happiness, unalloyed! Why then the sudden, oh-so-bold, so creative transition to waitressing? She couldn’t remember. Prolly just bored.
Then she saw Dusty Wilding at
the Hotel Bel-Air and every cell in her body woke up, every hair stood on end. She went to the house in Point Dume and they laughed and cried for real, hours of it, stoned on hash, singing out SUFFERING was the only thing made me feel I was alive thought that’s just how much it cost to survive in this world—till you showed me how how to fill my heart with love how to open up and drink in all that white light POURING DOWN FROM THE HEAVEN! as they roared up PCH to the movie star’s secondary love shack (in Carpinteria) in the canary yellow Alfa that Dusty wound up giving as a birthday gift.
—
And now she was at the Four Seasons.
How fucked was that?
So fucked.
In three weeks, she’d be thirty-seven . . .