I'll Let You Go

by Bruce Wagner

  “Joyce,” interrupted Bluey. “How are your dead children?”

  The room fell silent. Pullman barked at something from far away as a servant entered to clear.

  “You mean … the babies?” Joyce cleared her throat, taken aback. “Things are going very … well.”

  “How great,” said Trinnie mindlessly, trying to smooth the moment.

  “Yes! People seem to be quite moved. I mean, by the program.”

  Mr. Trotter gesticulated to the servant, who leaned over while the old man spoke briefly in his ear.

  “We’ve talked about this, Bluey,” Joyce said gently. She looked to her father-in-law for help, but he simply smiled and stared benevolently at his plate, as if to wait things out. “We’re looking for a larger cemetery,” she continued, feeling that at this point the broader strokes would be welcome. “I’d like to set aside a bigger space, that’s not so remote—that’s the goal, anyway. We’d like to do it in every state. And have them change the law so the names we give the children are permanent and legally binding.” She’d given the speech many times before, and tonight it came in handy.

  “Well,” said Louis, “just don’t put them in the Westwood!”

  The others laughed. They hoped Bluey was through; she wasn’t just yet.

  “Joyce—were there obituaries for any of the children?”

  “We always put a notice in the paper.”

  “I haven’t seen any. Are any of them well known?”

  “Mother,” said Trinnie, exasperated in spite of knowing better. “These are infants!”

  “Mother means famous, case by case,” said Louis, stroking his wife’s arm. “Don’t you, darling?”

  “Yes,” she affirmed.

  Louis smiled at the others, as if to say, See? Perfectly compos mentis!

  Another servant brought the cake. A ragged if uneventful blowing out of candles ensued. Dodd encouraged his guests to adjourn to the terrace for coffee and plates of mousse au caramel et aux poires.

  After a brief and cordial discussion of the pronunciatory variants of Ralph, and after complimenting the latter on his “wild suit” (a quilted Issey Miyake), Dodd Trotter affably quizzed the fop on his latest screenwriting gig. Ralph was shy around the billionaire, whom he in fact viewed as a potential source of capital for various projects as yet unrealized. Wishing to please his sister, who actually couldn’t have cared less, Dodd tried to make conversational inroads by mentioning how, with Mr. Hookstratten’s help, he had been delving the poetic and practical depths of The Art of War—which, he said, he’d gathered had become a kind of how-to manual for Hollywood theatrical agents and such. Ralph informed him that the military classic was actually passé, the hot new book being Aristotle’s Poetics: Richard LaGravenese, Steve Zaillian, Callie Khouri and Gary Ross all swore by it, he said—as did the whole fucking WGA. Dodd didn’t quite know what to make of that except to say The Art of War had proved insightful to him as a businessman.

  Ralph said he was now more interested in directing than writing for film. The latter, he said, was a loser’s game. Digital technology made it feasible for anyone to realize his vision; desire and a middling electrocardiogram were all a director required. The seriously stroked out Michelangelo Antonioni and Christopher Reeve, valiant quad though he was, both had films in the can, not to mention everyone from third-string DPs to casting directors to special-effects wizards to earnest morons like Kathy Bates, Kiefer Sutherland and Diane Ladd. Nepotism was rampant. Ralph Fiennes had a sister, Martha, who’d turned proud “helmer”; Ridley Scott’s, Larry Kasdan’s and Walter Matthau’s sons all directed. Ralph had read in the trades how Charlie Matthau bought the rights to a thirty-year-old screenplay by one of the late Vertigo scribes—that’s what Hollywood wanted: scripts by dead persons “helmed” by the weak-minded and well-born. A brief conversation ensued regarding some of Dodd’s newly acquired properties, with Ralph paying special attention to the empty prison in the Mojave. The budding auteur had the idea to shoot a DV ensemble piece à la Dogme 95.

  With distracted eyes on the distant lights of Olde CityWalk, Trinnie and her father strategized about Bluey. Louis in particular had become worried she might hurt herself during a nocturnal meandering. The two of them sighed; the evening had drawn to a close.

  “Well, here’s the man you ought to talk to,” said Bluey as husband and daughter approached. The old man’s face lit up supportively while Joyce’s shrank to a pale rictus.

  “Talk to, Mother?” he chuffed inquisitively, patiently putting an arm on her elbow. “Yes, of course! But what about?”

  “You’re the one with the quarry, Louis … my God, Joyce, your father-in-law has a twenty-two-acre open pit, 641 feet deep. It’s in Atlanta, but hell—that represents I don’t know how many millions of cubic yards of waste.”

  “What does it mean, darling?” he asked tenderly, the soul of kindness itself.

  “The babies, Louis! We’re talking about the babies! Joyce is looking for space to bury the babies and you’ve got space to burn.”

  A servant was duly dispatched to gather up Tull and his harlequin friend.

  Home at last, he tumbled to bed.

  The envelope his cousin had slipped him as they left the Black Lantern for Edward’s apartments was tucked deep inside his overcoat.

  Tull flicked on a nightstand lamp. Slung over a chair like a phantom, the cashmere garment suddenly gave him the creeps; he plucked the letter from its pocket, and ran back under the covers.

  He pulled out a page dated June 30, 1988. Sentences had been whited out and he wondered if his cousin was to blame. The document attested to progress made in “the case,” difficulties encountered, et cetera.

  He moistened his fingers to free the page stuck behind—a Xerox’d note written in cursive. On the letterhead was a personal monogram, M and W intertwined.

  Mr. Tabori,

  If I was shocked at the reckless insinuation of your employee, I was absolutely dumbfounded by the letter from your attorney which my office received today.

  I have referred the matter to my own counsel, who would probably object to my sending this note. I suggest that you retract your slanderous allegations, or you will find this former customer to be a litigious one.

  Sincerely,

  Marcus Weiner

  He read it aloud a half-dozen times, then put it beneath his pillow. Sincerely, Marcus Weiner …

  Just how much did Cousin Edward know?

  Something in him was afraid to ask.

  CHAPTER 15

  Revolution’s Eve

  That week, Trinnie invited him to go along on a job. She had never done that before; the gesture was a coming-of-age for both of them.

  Mother and son were met in the lobby of the Motion Picture and Television Hospital by Tim de Kooning, the pastor there. The Trotters were well known, and Father de Kooning said it was a happy coincidence to have recently met Trinnie’s sister-in-law in connection with a “quite amazing program for orphaned children which Joyce—I’m sure you know!—has spearheaded.”

  Upon entering the grounds, Trinnie felt as if in a geriatric Shangri-la. Like most Angelenos, she had only a dim awareness of this place, and (until now) thought of it as “the old actors’ home” rather than a modern medical facility. Her parents, along with their friends the Wassermans and the Douglases, had been generous to the institution throughout the years. Trinnie could remember being at a benefit listening to her mother and Debbie Reynolds chat about the Woodland Hills sanctuary, saying it was where both wanted to be when it was time to “wrap things up.” (Bluey had always loved show people.) Strolling through the cafeteria with its waiters and white linen, the pastor pointed out wizened cowboys and ex-vamps in dainty gloves carving up racks of lamb—here, a renowned cinematographer seated beside an early effects wizard; there, a mistress of Howard Hughes, now a hundred years old. The place had a hazy, anomalous Garden of Allah vibe that instantly drew her in. The Rockwellian town square, with its architectural n
od to gazebos, bandstands and calliopes, finished off the effect.

  They were on their way to Harry’s Haven, the unit for those suffering from the disease of forgetting. Father de Kooning liked going over to speak after Sunday chapel services. A gift from Kirk and Anne Douglas, the “Alzheimer’s cottage” had been built in memory of the actor’s father.

  They followed him in to a large room off the main corridor, where nurses had assembled about a dozen residents. Trinnie and Tull sat near the back while the pastor spoke. The boy watched the goings-on, wide-eyed. A hawk-like man with crossed, hairy arms corrosively deconstructed Father de Kooning’s monologue, then abruptly fell silent, like an actor on a stool upon a stage. In the back row, a painted woman kissed the hand of a fey, embarrassed galfriend. “You’re marvelous!” she hissed with maudlin zealotry. “You’re just sensational, and you know it!” A Babe Paley type, displeased by the outburst, turned to stare the painted woman down—the former resembling a socialite who’d been forced to endure Bedlam itself as some kind of charity stunt.

  Undaunted, the pastor homilized. “It was a dark and stormy night,” he said, putting on a bit of the evangelizing dog for Trinnie, “and a father and son headed home. They came to a bridge, but the bridge was washed out. As the wind howled and rain poured down, the man lifted his son and walked across a log that straddled the raging river.” He paused, for effect. “The boy awoke in his warm bed the next morning. He told his father that, back at the river, when he lifted him up he had fainted dead away, afraid they both would die.”

  “And I was afraid you wouldn’t!” interjected the hawkish scold, who then turned instantly to stone.

  The pastor was undeterred. “ ‘Why be afraid?’ asked the the boy’s father. ‘That’s what death is: you fall asleep in a storm—then suddenly, you’re home.’ ”

  Given the milieu, Tull thought the story inappropriate—not that anyone in the room had anything to say about it. Anyhow, who gave a shit? It wasn’t exactly the Crystal Cathedral. He looked at Trinnie, amazed to see tears in her eyes. Maybe her mind was on something else entirely. Maybe she’s just missing heroin, he thought maliciously.

  The pastor walked them to the garden and bid his adieu.

  Trinnie took a draft of air as she scanned the site.

  “They call this a wandering garden,” she said, in teaching mode, “because people with Alzheimer’s like to wander. Have you ever seen a walking labyrinth? They go way back to medieval Christian churches. That was my original thought for Saint-Cloud … there’s one in San Francisco—Grace. It’s based on the labyrinth at Chartres, thirteenth-century. Haven’t we been there, Tull?” He wouldn’t dignify it with an answer. “I can’t believe I never took you to Grace!”

  “I can,” he said, unable to resist.

  “Of course, there isn’t room for something like that here; the idea is to create the feeling of flow, without the formalism of concentric rings.” She stopped to touch the leaf of an overhanging tree. “The fun part is, all flowers must be edible. I am told that people with Alzheimer’s like to forage.”

  An old crone gained on them, her purplish-spotted arm extended as if to hail a cab. “Hey! Hey!” she shouted at Trinnie. “You’re sensational! You’re just sensational and you know it! You know it!” She picked up speed and overtook them, a contender in a crazed derby.

  “Maybe I should build a little grotto—and dovecotes. I need to find out if the sound of pigeons or water is a no-no for Alzheimoids. The birds’ll probably shit everywhere, and that’s no good … this really does remind me of the park Proust’s uncle made—the Pré Catelan—at Illiers-Combray. You know: ‘lost time’ and all. Kind of thematically perfect, huh. But is it pretentious?” Listening to his mother prattle sickened him. “Did I ever tell you,” she said conspiratorially, “that I stole something from the Proust Museum? Oh my God! A butter dish. I’ve never told anyone that; I wasn’t ‘well’ at the time—I think I was AWOL from somewhere. I need to send it back, anonymously, but I’ve never been able to find the damn thing. I only hope to God they had the sense not to leave the real dish out for John Q. Public … or should I say Jean Q. Publique—”

  “Is Grandma going to live here?”

  “No,” she said smugly, as if such a thing were out of the question.

  Tull nodded at the squawking crone as she came around on another lap. “Is that what’s happening to Grandma?”

  “We don’t know what’s happening to Grandma.”

  “Then why are we here?”

  “Because I’m redoing the garden. Grandpa’s paying for it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the Douglases asked him to.”

  “If Grandma’s going to live here, you should just tell me.”

  “She’s not—OK?”

  Trinnie shot him a look that said, I’ve already told you my secrets—get over it.

  They kept walking.

  “It’d be interesting to plant a little Cosmos atrosanguineus—that’s Latin for ‘black blood.’ They’re from Mexico and they smell like hot chocolate. Though I’m not so sure they can be eaten,” she said, besotted with herself.

  Tull’s finger felt the soft outline of the folded cryptogram he’d committed to memory and carried in his pocket all week long. If I was shocked at the reckless insinuation of your employee, I was absolutely dumbfounded—

  “Why were you crying?” he asked.

  “Crying?”

  “Inside—when he told the story.”

  “It made me sad.”

  “A retarded Sunday School story made you sad,” he said acidly. “Are you born-again now, on top of being AA?”

  “Look,” she said, stopping in her tracks. “I brought you here because I thought you might be curious about what I do—and have compassion for what’s happened to these people. But all you’re doing is giving me shit.”

  “Fuck you!” he shouted. “You’re not even here! You think that because you told me about Marcus—your version—you couldn’t even do it yourself, you needed Grandpa there!—you think that because you tell me some bullshit, suddenly you’re the great mother? You’re just a drug addict!”

  “No one’s ‘just a drug addict,’ Tull,” she said wearily.

  “You think because you get chauffeured to AA meetings, that makes you a great mother? That because you pay someone to come to the house and show you how to meditate that makes you a great mother?”

  “I wish you’d stop saying that.”

  “That you’ve been sober six weeks? Who cares! At least he left. I never had to even meet him—but you—you keep—coming—back! Keep coming back! Keep coming back!” He shrieked, flapping his arms in furious mockery of the famous slogan. “You don’t even care what it’s like to—for me to try to find you and you’re just gone! You don’t give a shit about me! When were we supposed to have gone to San Francisco to see some cathedral? When, Trinnie? That is such a joke! You don’t even know who I am—all you care about are your clothes and your drugs—”

  “I’m not taking drugs.”

  “But you will! You will!”

  “Thank you, Tull. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “And Grandpa gives you money, like, every day. And you hate him! You hate your father—”

  “Don’t project on me, Tull.”

  “You hate everyone but yourself. Don’t tell me about compassion when you don’t even care about your own parents. You’ve done nothing but practically kill them! All they do is worry about you, you think Bluey doesn’t have any feelings, but Bluey just doesn’t show it like Grandpa does. If it wasn’t for them, I’d be dead! You don’t care about anyone! Not me or stupid Rafe or Grandma or Grandpa or Pullman—Pullman cares more about me than you ever did! You fucking make me sick!—”

  She slapped him, and he stared at her in shock.

  Sobbing with anger, he tried to leave the garden, but the gate, like all doors, locked from inside to corral the guests. He put his foot on a tree and boosted himself
to scale the fence, dropping down on the other side.

  Trinnie watched, heart in throat, as he ran up the hill of the former onion field. She couldn’t help but notice the valley oak at its crest, fairly rare for Southern California.

  Trinnie thought: Everything he said is true. And if then and there the gods had transmuted the very dirt to morphine, she’d have sunk to her knees and choked on the earth.

  While the drama played out in Woodland Hills (ending with the winded Tull’s safe on-ramp apprehension), another scene unspooled at a Westwood cemetery with which the reader is already familiar.

  The old man stood on his parcel. Instead of the Silver Seraph, the plush Mauck had been maneuvered past the gate; it did not present a serious encumbrance, for today park tourists were scant. Edward sat in his buggy a few paces away, ramrod straight thanks to the trusty titanium brace, which Lucy had adorned with decals of wasps and figs. Sling Blade, leaning on a rake to watch the summit from afar, completed the tableau.

  The cousin smiled as beatifically as possible, while a fawning Dot discoursed. His grandfather tolerated the woman with a customary wince. Her flannel dress, to the old man’s offended eye, looked like a stained tent cinched at the waist by a thrift-store belt and pinned by a fun-house brooch—a medal given to the sartorially challenged.

  “What an honor it is to meet you!” she said, pumping his webbed little hand. Edward’s mood was markedly Zen. “Those gloves! That marvelous veil! Are they—what was the word Mr. Trotter used?—‘bespoke’? You’re just like your grandpa—so stylish. You are definitely going to be added to Dot Campbell’s Best-Dressed Hall of Fame, and that’s a hard thing to achieve!”

  “Mrs. Campbell, please—”