One Last Lunch

by Erica Heller

  Rain Pryor is an actress, writer, baker, mother, and wife. Pryor is the creator of Fried Chicken and Latkes, an award-winning solo show, a hilarious and heart-wrenching story of growing up black and Jewish in a politically incorrect era. Her father was comic genius Richard Pryor, and her mother a Jewish go-go dancer turned astronomer. Discover how Pryor finds her identity in both worlds and works to change ours. Directed by Eve Brandstein, Fried Chicken and Latkes is currently in series development with Norman Lear, Olive Bridge, and MGM, where Pryor is a writer and executive producer.

  — 39 —

  “My father who arts in heaven.”

  CHRISTOPHER RAUSCHENBERG (SON) AND ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG

  When Erica asked me to write about an imagined lunch with my mostly deceased father,1 I knew it would have to be in his kitchen on Lafayette Street. Everything happened in that kitchen, even though it was just a small part of his five-story New York building.

  For this lunch, I wouldn’t have any agenda of unfinished business or scores to settle with him or anything like that. My father and I loved each other, were excited about each other’s work, and told each other so. This is a great gift that many of the others in this book may be seeking at their lunches.

  Lunchtime is the very beginning of the day for both my father and me; we’re both serious night owls. My father was a great cook and was an early foodie. Though he loved to cook, this lunch would be simple. Plenty of different cheeses and an array of various crackers. The TV would be on, roaring away as usual. He always had the TV on as a second kind of window, the same way you wouldn’t be comfortable in a room that didn’t have a normal window. For him, this TV window was not something that one controlled; he didn’t ever change the channel. It was there to let the culture roll into the room and be part of his large understanding of the world. For those of us who don’t normally watch TV, it was very distracting, but not for him. He could follow multiple simultaneous conversations in the room, plus whatever was happening on the TV, plus whatever sounds were coming in through the window, all at once. He was a great juggler of sensory input in his life, as in his art.

  Many years ago, Bob and my mom both came to the opening of a show of my photography at the Portland Art Museum. After the opening, we were hanging out in Bob’s hotel room when he asked Mom with a very serious expression, “Where do you think we go when we die?” Without a moment’s hesitation, she said, “To the studio!” He was very happy with that answer. Consequently, the first question that I would ask at this imaginary lunch is “Was she right? When you died, did you go to the studio, and what have you been up to in that studio for the last nine years?”2

  When my wife Janet and I visited Bob down in Captiva, I always loved to go with him in the evenings to his studio and watch him make work. Since he was an artist who was driven by his gigantic curiosity—who loved to make work of every possible kind out of every possible material—I can’t begin to imagine what materials he would get his hands on in heaven and what he would do with them. Actually, I’m not confident that I could imagine it even after he described it to me, but I’d sure like to try.

  My second question would be about which other people he is interacting with up there. When I imagine him in this heaven that I don’t believe in, of course I know that he would be drinking (ambrosia, perhaps? At our lunch he’s drinking white wine with ice cubes), carousing, and collaborating with his close friends who have also died. That goes without saying. He won’t have stopped there, though. (For example, his dance piece Pelican, with Bob in a big round parachute and roller skates, certainly has room for Leonardo to join the dance in his flying machine.)

  When Bob was near the end of his life, he said, “I’m not afraid of dying, but I don’t want to miss anything.” The best part of Erica’s imagined lunch scenario is the implication that, rather than missing things, he is instead getting to explore a new world with new rules to break and new previously unimagined combinations, collaborations, and conversations to revel in.

  My father, in his youth, wanted to be a minister until he found out that his mother’s church didn’t allow dancing. That was an immediate deal-breaker for him. Some people don’t believe that animals can go to heaven, but that would be another deal-breaker. Bob’s dogs would have to be there for sure, as well as his turtle, Rocky. Rocky didn’t like the beautiful nature in Florida when Bob moved down to Captiva.3 That makes me a bit worried about whether Rocky might be too much of a city turtle for heaven, but she would have to be crawling under the kitchen table at our lunch, trying to bite our feet a little, to remind us to set down a nice big piece of watermelon on the floor for her.

  Once we’d stuffed ourselves with cheese and crackers, I’d get down to business for a few minutes. Bob had so many philanthropic interests that his Foundation has to take them in rotation, a couple at a time. I’d ask him what issues we should choose to shine our “moving spotlight” on next.

  Our artists-in-residence often report seeing Bob still lurking around in his Captiva studios and houses, customarily clad in his white shirt, with the sleeves rolled up, and matching painter’s pants, but I wouldn’t ask him about that. If he wants to discreetly check out what’s going on there, that’s more than fine with me.

  If we have time, before our miraculous lunch is over, I’d want to ask him about his depiction of God in The Happy Apocalypse. This was a rood screen that the Catholic Church commissioned him to make for their new Padre Pio Liturgical Hall—they asked him to depict the Apocalypse but to not make it look too depressing. As its central image, Bob depicted God as a huge satellite dish enveloping the whole earth. When the finished work was presented to the Pope for his approval, in 1999, the Pope could not accept this depiction of the Lord, but I’d want to know what God himself thought of it.

  Christopher Rauschenberg is the President of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, is the board chair and a co-founder of the nonprofit Blue Sky Gallery, and is an active artist photographer who has had 117 solo shows in eighteen countries. His work is held in the collections of eleven major museums.

  1 I say “mostly deceased” because the whole purpose of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation is really to minimize the amount that he is gone. We have his Captiva studio full of excited artists making collaborations, experiments, and beautiful artworks; we have his philanthropy chugging along merrily helping interesting, good things happen; we are sending his work out into the world where it’s still inciting curiosities and blowing minds.

  2 For starters, I would expect him to be jamming on the “prepared harp” with John Cage and others.

  3 She disgustedly shook the sand off her feet and put her head against a cinderblock until Bob gave in and sent her back up to New York, where she had her beloved wood floors and radiators and her favorite rectangle of sun.

  — 40 —

  “Just because a guy does tai chi, he can’t enjoy a steak?”

  ROBERT CHALMERS (APPREHENSIVE ACQUAINTANCE) AND LOU REED

  A table in the otherwise deserted restaurant named Where the Light Gets In (recently acclaimed as the best in the UK by The Guardian) in Stockport, Greater Manchester. The establishment opens to the public at 7:00 p.m. It is mid-afternoon. Where the Light Gets In offers a menu at a minimum of £100; diners have no choice in what they are offered. LOU REED arrives, fifteen minutes late, wearing the kind of somber leather outfit he adopted at the end of his life.

  LR (in his customary, deeply sarcastic monotone)

  “I take it that you wrote that obituary?”

  Which one?

  “The one full of snide innuendo, dead metaphors, and obituarist’s code. ‘When he approached people on the sidewalk, the street would invariably be crossed by those who did not know him, and occasionally by people who did.’ ”

  How do you know about—

  “ ‘He did not suffer fools gladly.’ Oh, please.”

  Well, you didn’t.

  “Who does suffer fools gladly? What, was I supposed to walk around c
arrying a placard that read ‘Assholes Welcome’? I mean, there would be risks to such behavior.”

  Such as?

  “Attracting the company of people like you.”

  So you remember the last time we met?

  (Withering look) “Oh yes. How could I forget?”

  A young WAITRESS arrives and delivers two small plates of avocado salad.

  LR (poking at the dish with his fork)

  “Is there cream in this?”

  WAITRESS (nervous)

  “Just a little.”

  LR

  “Yeah. Right. ‘Just a little pregnant.’ ” (Pushes the salad aside) (To me) “Why have you brought me here? Where are we?”

  Stockport. Greater Manchester. The Guardian says this is the best—

  “Screw the Guardian. My idea of abject hell is to follow the advice of an English journalist. And didn’t Friedrich Engels describe Stockport as ‘a hole’? Though actually (mean glare) this place looks like it might belong to some failed stockbroker in the Village. You know the places I like. That I liked. The Kitchen on West Nineteenth. John’s on Bleecker. Wallsé. Stockport. Jesus.”

  WAITRESS (approaches with a bottle of white wine and pours two very small glasses)

  “Cuvée Pollux, from the Jura. It is stored for six years under yeast.”

  LR

  “Oh really. And what is this, a sample?” (raises the glass to his nose and inhales) “I’m getting honey, toast, peach, pear, mandarin, and scheming hipster greed.”

  WAITRESS offers to fill his glass more.

  LR

  “No. I’m not . . . I’m not supposed to drink.”

  WAITRESS (arrives with another small plate)

  “Diced ox-heart, in quince and pine oil.”

  LR

  “You English are to fine cuisine what Burkina Faso is to space explor—” (tastes a small amount) “Actually that really isn’t bad.” (To me) “You could have chosen to bring anyone here today, right?”

  Yes.

  “Your late father. Or your mother, Joan?”

  Yes.

  “So why pick on me?” (LR attacks the ox-heart with gusto)

  I thought you were a vegetarian.

  “No. Just because a guy does tai chi, he can’t enjoy a steak? Why pick on me?”

  Because . . . a friend once said to me: “You know: I would hate to be a journalist, because it would mean meeting people whose work I really admired, and they would treat me like a dick.”

  “Your friend got that right. Who was that?”

  Vivian Stanshall.

  “A very great artist.”

  When you and I last collided, the meeting lasted three minutes, forty-seven seconds. That’s shorter than most of your songs.

  “Hardly my fault.”

  Yes it was. You were late.

  LR (mimicking Mancunian accent)

  “Oh. You were late. I am so sorry. And before I arrived, as I recall, you sat down with my personal assistant Jake . . .”

  I didn’t know he was your assistant. I thought he was some record company guy. So when he said: “Be careful what you say to Mr. Reed. Some American journalists have been asking inappropriate questions,” I said . . .

  “You said: ‘Oh. You mean like, “Where’s Rachel?” ’?”

  It was a joke.

  “A joke. You were talking about somebody . . . how should I describe Rachel . . .”

  Transvestite?

  “Transsexual. The transsexual I was in love with and lived with for three years, to the horror of my friends and family. You think that’s a joke?”

  When you finally showed up and went off into a huddle with Jake in that side room at the Mayfair Hotel, I am assuming he informed you of that exchange.

  “Oh yes. He informed me, okay. In some detail. And I said to him: nothing surprises me about the British. So when you said, after three minutes—”

  Three minutes of monosyllabic rudeness.

  “When you said, after three minutes, that ‘if you do not enjoy doing interviews, here’s an idea, Lou: don’t do them,’ I got up.”

  And left in a peevish swirl of leather.

  “I wasn’t peeved. I didn’t swirl. I was angry.”

  You still angry now?

  “Now? No.” (REED, who has been eyeing the white wine, swallows the contents of the glass in one go.) “No. I am not angry now. Because now I have gained . . . perspective. So what are you hoping for this time?”

  To know what made you the way you were in life.

  “What way was I?”

  Sullen. Moody. Aggressive. Contemptuous of people.

  “What kind of people?”

  People who loved and admired your work. People like me.

  “It was the only way of achieving what I wanted and had never had.”

  A punch in the mouth?

  “No.” (much more serious) “Control.” (Waves away the WAITRESS, who has arrived with plates of beef marinated in Crozes Hermitages.) “Control. I need . . . I needed, control.”

  Over?

  “Control over what food I ate and when. Control over people attacking me for qualities I had that were a source of mockery.”

  Such as?

  “Being different. Being a faggot. You are aware that my father, Sidney, took me to an institution in Rockland County where they placed a wooden probe down my throat that was supposed to stop you swallowing your tongue, but in my case made me vomit. You are aware that they strapped electrodes to my temples in order to ‘negate homosexual urges’? You want to fuck a kid up, that’s not a bad way to set out. Can you imagine the guilt?”

  Were there things that you were rightly guilty of?

  “Later, yes. Pride. Arrogance. Sloth. Anger. A lot of anger. A lot.”

  You seem different.

  “I am. Very.”

  Have you forgiven me?

  “Yes.”

  Why?

  (Absolutely serious and almost kindly in tone) “I can’t . . . I am not at liberty to answer that, Robert.”

  The owner of Where the Light Gets In, Sam Buckley, who is also an accomplished string player and session musician, approaches, carrying two brandy cocktails made with the juice of citrus fruits he has marinated for eighteen months.

  SB

  “Mr Reed . . . I love your work.”

  LR (sipping cocktail)

  “Thank you.”

  SB

  “I am a musician, too.”

  LR (with a flicker of old mischief)

  “Oh, really. Would you go up to Jesus and say, ‘You know: I, too, have suffered at the hands of my enemies?’ ” (Pause) “Forgive me. What I mean is: stick with the ox-heart and the fruit juice. You’re very good at that.”

  SB leaves.

  LR (to me)

  “I think—I know—I became imprisoned by the image I had created of myself.”

  You mean you felt compelled to be, to borrow a noun frequently applied to you, a cunt? As I recall, you told an old lady on a phone in a show in Massachusetts that “I am so glad people of your age die of cancer.”

  “Yes, well . . . what goes around. It was my way of dealing with the world. It’s very hard . . . you brought up the subject of Rachel when we met that day. . . .”

  Where is Rachel?

  “Rachel . . . Tommy Humphreys . . . is dead. Do you know what someone wrote about Rachel? The person that I loved? ‘Bearded, grotesque, abject. She looks like something that might have grovelingly scampered in when Lou opened the door to get the milk.’ That was Lester Bangs.”

  Why take that seriously?

  “Well I don’t, not now.”

  Which of your songs do you remember with affection?

  “None of them.”

  “Perfect Day”?

  “Perfect crap.”

  I remember you publicly denying that song was about heroin.

  “I did deny it, yes. Of course it’s about heroin. It’s more about heroin than ‘Heroin.’ What song do you like best?”
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  “I’ll Be Your Mirror.”

  (Uncharacteristic glance of grudging respect) “Well that . . . all of those songs seem hugely insignificant to me now, but that song—yes . . . it was imbued with certain qualities that I tried to disguise in my life off-stage.”

  Such as?

  “Compassion. Kindness. Empathy. Vulnerability. I was a very vulnerable person.”

  Was your life a tragedy?

  “In some respects. My relationship with my parents. The fact that . . . what I really loved was literature. I felt inferior because I didn’t go to an Ivy League school, Harvard or Yale.” (Steely look) “I had the intelligence for that.”

  I don’t doubt it.

  “Yeah, and I worked in a business where people assumed you to be an idiot.”

  People?

  “Journalists. That’s why I humiliated them. That’s why I sought to humiliate you. Ninety-nine percent of the time I was dealing with people I believed were far less smart than I was. Of course, going to the schools I went to, I had the great good fortune to meet Delmore Schwartz. And later Hubert Selby. And Burroughs. Wonderful writers. And I wanted to be a wonderful writer.”

  You were. I mean . . . apart from things like “Hudson River Wind Meditations.”

  “Possibly not my finest hour. What I mean is that I would have loved to achieve on a more orthodox stage. In the library, not on the dance floor. That’s one crucial reason I was an addict. It is not true that all addicts are interesting. Even if I think that me, Cale, and Dylan—each one of us drug addicts—were interesting. But it is true that all addicts are compensating for not being what they want to be.”

  You mean a poet and novelist?

  “Yeah. And a straight guy with a black Trans-Am and a love for baseball and a dog and a wife called Sheila.”

  You were drinking again at the end. John Cale called your life “a slow suicide.”

  “Well, John is Welsh. And a melancholic. He might equally have said that I lived by reprieve.”

  Anyhow, you had the dog.