Hollywood Savage

  We’re so limited by this model that our visually based logic starts to quake as soon as we dive below the level of the “naked eye”…

  Quantum mechanics, in other words, defies logic; surely then it follows that logic—at least that kind of logic—is outdated? The key now is to find a new way to think.

  What I want, the thought occurs, as if from far away at first but also without any doubt, the clarity of this desire developing like film, is some kind of resolution. I can’t say which, and I have no idea how to get there, but I know this: I can’t go on living like this much longer without finally arriving at some solid, unambivalent answer; one that brooks no turning back.

  I press my face against the cold, murky oval of the airplane window to see the earth’s curvature, the plane planing.

  Christ. There it is: LA, the Valley—the entire monstrosity of it, spreading out and out and out like an organism without end, all of it covered in thick brown murk, plainly visible from this height.

  I close my eyes, not wanting to see us dip below that dirty haze, knowing that, for now, this is where I live. For better or for worse, I’m home.

  —8 may, descending into LAX

  Back a week now, still feel schizophrenic. Am jolted equally by the sense of its not being completely real—and also by the weird sense of being (sort of, queerly) home.

  At least Lucci’s back, too; it’s a serious relief to plunge back into work. Notice he’s carrying the book around. He’s reading it (“again”)—for the third time, he insists, though I’m about 1,000% positive it’s the first.

  “Eva, my wife”—this is what he always says when he’s not sure of himself (then it’s “EVA, MY WIFE, SAYS/EVA, MY WIFE, THINKS/IT’S IN MY WIFE, EVA’S OPINION”—Cliff Notes! j’accuse—but only in the privacy of my own mind). Still, fuck it; even better, I say—if a woman made him do it, then…

  My wife and I have not spoken. Since I’ve been back, the urgency’s retreated (the geographical cure). Makes me wonder about the undercurrents that exist in a marriage … they feel karmic (or fated, if you prefer)—think for me the sense of fate is too close to that of doom—it’s like knowing your own future, then having to live it.

  The terror of fiction, when, in fact, it’s not.

  —15 may, back in the hills

  Having been caught in NY w/ Lucy has given rise to a continual, low-grade paranoia, like some fever that’s traveled back w/ me, the heat rising parallel with a sense of being outed (it’s the downside of fame, I see it with startling clarity, its ill effects: the wholly unanticipated loss of privacy is terrifying, sick-making).

  Beginning to realize that nothing’s worth that loss for a writer, whose very profession attempts not just anonymity, but almost invisibility itself, for the opportunity it faithfully serves, giving one the freedom and chance to observe, while remaining unseen…

  Meanwhile (back in the States), Lucy and I now in sync on a whole other level. Since our return, Lucy begs for motels, basically refusing to come over.

  An affair, after all, is about the ongoing honeymoon, as opposed to the week or two most people get, she says archly (a shade of her I’ve never quite seen before). You know, as a kind of consolation prize for what it leads to—the institution of marriage.

  What we’re after is more the sense, she went on (very much unprodded, let me here state) of time together as something stolen (background music provided—VENUS IN MALIBU—the label of one mixed tape she’d made for me of Rickie Lee Jones, Hope Sandoval, Courtney Love, Björk—mostly all her crazed chick music, w/ the occasional Chet Baker, Ben Harper, or Coltrane thrown in for bass relief.)

  When I protest, no more motels!—like one evening a couple of days ago (we were driving toward La Brea on Sunset, to be specific), she pointed one out, said, “I thought you liked Chandler, baby!” And if I hold out, she pulls the ever-reliable “look, I’ll pay”—as if the issue were—would ever be!—about money, which of course gets me every time, I’m saying no, no, I won’t hear of it (though when she insists on the cheapest, rattiest Hollywood Blvd. motels, cash only, I let her split it with me, right down the middle—as if that kind of sordid could ever be divided).

  Last night she begged me to pull into The Palms (“our local,” as she put it), I just shook my head, refusing to care one way or the other as she extolled its virtues (“it’s only got the greatest neon sign ever!”). No, I said, grouchy, no, no, no, no, & never told her how I drove back the next day to take a picture of the sign alone, that red VACANCY still glowing, much paler in the glare of daylight.

  Afterward, when I pressed her re: why motels, always, now (does she think we’re—i.e., she’s—being watched?) she just shook her head, refusing to define it for me, made me feel like the class dolt (duh, I don’t get it …!).

  Finally she admitted (only once) that she’d felt that way ever since Maggie was here.

  I couldn’t stop picturing the two of you at the house, in that bed, she said. I bet she pees with the door open (no, I said, a lie she deigned to dignify with denial, knowing she was right—as if it mattered! As if she doesn’t do just that with her husband!).

  She went on, Or her sitting in your bedroom, putting on makeup, which of course she does perfectly, I bet she has the most expensive—I bet she buys that, you know, what they call caviar for the face, it’s more expensive, ounce for ounce, than gold—and she waxes, I mean without fail, every six weeks, her legs and her bikini—I bet you haven’t seen a single—not one—stray hair on her body, anywhere—

  I made a sound, disbelief, protest, but more for how close she was, hitting every mark; wanted to say don’t you realize how much more insecure that proves her?… but couldn’t bring myself to betray Maggie, to give that away. She sat up, then pulled away abruptly, snatching up my shirt to wrap it around herself as she added, She probably wears teeny itty bitty silk camisoles with those delicate little spaghetti straps to bed—or else your boxers, no top—she’s never breast-fed, of course, and she does like what, a thousand sit-ups every day?

  I forced a laugh, unsure if I felt hurt or angry by how accurately she’d nailed my wife.

  I bet you got up first, made her coffee just how she likes it, kissed her when she came downstairs—

  Baby— I reached but she twisted herself away, turning so I caught only the corner of her tremulous smile (showing me she was fine, it was fine, everything was fine…). Yeah, right.

  Never mind, she said, exhaling as forcefully as if she’d just finished a marathon. It’s just married life, right?

  Right, I answered, as gently as I could, though what I wanted to say was, isn’t that how it is—isn’t that how you are, with him? You don’t wear his boxers to bed (no, I thought, she’d find his oldest, holiest, loosest T-shirt and bundle up in his socks before climbing in next to him, her hair pulled up and back into that quirky knot she can tie in three seconds, so it ends up a spray, like some funny little fountain foaming straight up from the top of her head…).

  It is always, for me (that stupid, fierce male pride), a kind of surrender when we turn toward each other, wordlessly, again; the deeply pleasurable sigh of relinquishment.

  —23 may, hollywood

  Fractured life, fractured thoughts. Fragments of some dream keep coming back, real as memory, refusing to evaporate.

  Sense of being on a dangerous precipice, fingers bare, ready to hurl my marriage over the edge.

  To have been in New York, and not to have known she wasn’t there.

  To have been in the city and not seen my wife.

  —25 may, hollywood

  Note from Lucy (written, it would seem, the night she returned) but only given to me the first time she (at last!) consented to come over.

  After an intense, seven-plus-minutes, heart-pounding, man-on-top, blue-ribbon bout, she stopped—as if it were an afterthought—to fish the note out of her jeans and toss it to me while she hit the shower:

  M.,

  Will picked me up (Walter, who I was phy
sically aching to see, was staying over at W’s parents’ place), didn’t ask about much—sometimes I could swear he’s making it as easy as possible for me. I hardly even have to lie.

  Came home to my quiet house, and we’ve already exhausted everything we have to say. Can not express the depth of my despair at the sight of Will consuming his frozen dinner alone, reading the paper, while I went upstairs to unpack my bag. It is like being in my father’s house—safe, yes, protected, yes, warm, yes. But utterly sterile.

  He went to bed, I hid in the tub.

  The anguish of being alive! I think of people who are tortured, robbed, raped, people who are starving—I have everything & I am still bereft. I can’t find whatever it is I’m craving—some kind of inner peace, I guess, but I’d settle for the simple capacity to just BE in the moment—to enjoy a good meal, sleeping in on rainy mornings, spending a sunny afternoon in the park w/ my kid—just life! Instead I’m tense and strained, always looking forward & forward & forward, to US—& don’t get me wrong, you don’t let me down!—but it only seems to add to the problem, because I do achieve these states of bliss w/ you, only to crash when I leave…

  God, can anybody ever love us enough?? Only our parents, I guess—but my father’s dead & my mother’s miles away (plus we drive each other crazy after 48 hrs under the same roof, so what else is new?). My son I could never doubt, but if I do my job right, wasn’t he born to leave me?

  My husband, I know, is the logical choice (as if logic had anything to do w/ love—much less passion)—he is my mate, but he’s absent more than anything else … (I know you’re going to say “me, of course,” but you, my dearest, precious, most beloved lover, belong to somebody else)…

  My desire for you lately less sexual than the craving to be comforted. To be comforted, you must be known.

  It’s galling, isn’t it, how short a leash love’s really on. The minute all that attentiveness is withdrawn, the heart grows cold. Everything lets me down. All I see are the limits—everywhere, how limited my own capacity to love. It’s all conditional. If, if, if. If you adore me, appreciate me, hear me, follow me, comfort me, desire me, never leave me … I’m nothing but conditions and demands, a crazy romantic, craving fantasy only to (inevitably) crash against disillusionment, & landing so fucking hard…

  I guess we’re always searching for the soul—The One—who will love us no matter what—but I’m not capable, obviously, of performing the same herculean task for anyone else … including, I suppose most profoundly, myself.

  I try to see my future but I can’t. It’s like being in some kind of unending fogbank. I try to imagine this—us—ending, & I can’t, can NOT, bear it! But I torture myself w/ 1,000 diff. scenarios—you finding someone new, some movie star, or me getting pregnant … & then what? W/out you, the hole would be there, & no baby, NO ONE ELSE, could ever fill it—

  God, I’m so far from my husband, and still I think how can I live without him (not to mention all the stuff he does—I know NOTHING about insurance or taxes or IRA accounts, plus all that house stuff, like plumbing & cables & sewage tanks, gutters—I can’t even figure out the fuse box!). I know that’s the trivial stuff, but what I’m getting at is how much I depend on him—sometimes I really think without him my life wouldn’t be possible … taking class and reading in the park and getting babysitters—Jesus, without him I couldn’t be doing this! It kills me, it really does—I’m taking the worst kind of advantage, and just lying, all the time.

  The weird thing is that sometimes I think it’s not even the affair that’s driving Will and me so far apart—sometimes I feel like the worse betrayal is how I don’t let him know me anymore—I’ve totally shut him out of my inner life—what’s really going on in me, all the deep things—who I am, what I think about, what I’m becoming, how scared I get, how bewildered…

  I’ve never been the kind of girl who goes into a relationship with an agenda. I’m not manipulative, I don’t leave things out, I don’t hide the bad parts. That’s so fundamentally NOT me! Doing this, acting this way, it’s corrupting me. I’ve always declared myself, Miles. I mean, when I got married I meant it—for better or for worse, all of it. I did NOT get married to get divorced … and believe me, I know what a cliché that is…

  That’s where it ended, in midthought, unfinished, unsigned; it automatically conjured up images: Will walking in, her shoving the notebook in a drawer, trying to act casual, heart pounding, “Hi, sweetheart, I didn’t hear you come in—you hungry?”

  I folded the note back up into its original creases, considered sliding it back into her jeans, too, but I couldn’t pretend, not even for a few seconds, that that wouldn’t be a move intended to sabotage … that note might as well have been a live bomb, the kind of thing that would forever embed shrapnel into a guy’s heart. Part of me wanted it, especially the destruction part, but I knew that really, it was Con I was fantasizing about, not Lucy’s husband. He was the innocent party in this—fuck, he was me!

  I put the piece of paper on top of her pillow, and when she came out of the bathroom, I made her—always, unwillingly—sit on my lap, forced her to yield all her weight against me.

  Sweetie, I tried. Don’t make yourself crazy—

  I can’t help it, she said—she was not going to be cajoled into a state of comfort—I imagine being with Will, being old, Walter grown and gone, and us left with just this—this silence—God, it’s so damn oppressive, Miles, you have no idea …!

  And me, I said. Do you never imagine being old with me—being married to—

  Never, she cut me off, averting her eyes so I knew she was lying, standing up. Wouldn’t marriage ruin everything. Doesn’t it.

  Don’t idealize me, she said before she left that night; I couldn’t stand it later, when you’re disappointed.

  How do you know, I asked her, grabbed her by the arm, made her face me. She took a deep breath, and then, refusing to look at me, said, Didn’t she. Didn’t your wife disappoint you.

  Such calm, worse than being slapped. I let her go.

  And my husband, she said then. You think I haven’t disappointed him?

  We all disappoint each other, she finished. It’s part of what it is to be human.

  Does it have to be, I muttered, the bitterness directed at her, she knew it. She took my hands unexpectedly, kissed my wrists, and I was undone by her capacity for tenderness all over again, by how deeply she feels everything she says.

  I seized her flesh with both hands, I pulled her body against mine, held her with all the force of the life I’ve lived so far, and all the life I’ve left to go—

  It doesn’t matter, she said, words struggling up over the urge to cry. My heart’s broken open.

  —28 may, LA

  Came across this by exiled Czechoslovakian Milan Kundera, give it to Lucy—

  … recently she was pursued by the idea that her love for Paul was merely a matter of will, merely the will to love him; merely the will to have a happy marriage. If she eased up on this will for just a moment, love would fly away like a bird released from its cage.

  The strange & ironic reference to “will”—not something she overlooks, I know, though she folds the piece of paper carefully, says nothing. Her smile stiff, phony.

  She talks about him, about Will, almost every time I see her these days—tells me how they’re not getting along, how she must punish herself for it.

  Tells me the only time she can conceive of having sex with him is when he’s sleeping; off guard. The idea of his rise to passion from unconsciousness excites her, she admits (evading my gaze); it reminds her of how she once loved him.

  Every other circumstance feels so heavy with expectation, and worse, familiarity, she said, Going through the motions is so … awful. Why not just let it die altogether, and stay dead until—if!—it comes back. You know, desire as phoenix, rising out of the ashes…

  They’d gone to dinner with his folks weekend last, she said, she’d buried her face in her hands so her voice
was a muffled murmur. She said she’d never felt a worse fraud, talking about her family’s future with such assurance, the possibility (his father’s embarrassed winkety-wink, nudgety-nudge) of Walter having a sister, or brother … one day soon?

  I wanted to sabotage all that assumption she said, her eyes fierce, I kept having these horrible impulses, wanted to drop a couple of short, terrorizing statements—like “if I’m there.”

  There is no tenderness between us lately, she went on, face reburied, I don’t even feel guilty—just, hollow; one-dimensional. The worst part is, he’s lived with that version of me for so long, he’s forgotten there used to be a real, three-dimensional person there before.

  She exhaled as if she were expelling every last molecule of air inside, then stared blankly out the window.

  I hope he can forgive me, she said finally.

  I thought of Maggie, did not say what I was thinking (I hope we can forgive each other).

  Such an enormous chore, Lucy said after a long silence, as if thinking out loud, having two lives.

  She poured herself another glass of wine, I lit a cigarette.

  The last time Will and I went out with another couple, she said, I felt so stifled—like I was trussed up in some kind of girdle, a turtleneck, a belt notched too tight … it was just, you know, that kind of square, predictable energy of being a couple, with another couple, talking kids and CNN?

  I nodded, knowing she just wanted me to listen.

  I just keep seeing my life mapped out in front of me: Walter in elementary school, doing those silly plays where kids are broccoli, forget the words to the songs, and just like that suddenly he’ll be in junior high, he’ll stop talking to me, it’ll all be about his friends, me taking more classes to fill the time, and eventually, the three of us will move to a better neighborhood, live in a bigger place…

  She put her glass down so suddenly it spilled over the edge, real desperation edging her tone. What I really can’t stand is the sexlessness of it all—it makes me feel so shallow! And either Will’s clueless or he’s in total denial, I don’t know which is worse …! It’s like the other night, after I came back from so-called class, he asked if I was “happy to be home.” I kind of shrugged, you know, obviously not—and he frowned, like bzzz, wrong answer! And of course, he won’t pursue it. He never intuits me, he never gets to the bottom of anything.