by Bruce Wagner
Staring at Lazarus, tickling his perfect pinkness while he wrapped a Lilliputian hand around her finger, an old sickening riff sang in her head: this was how she had expected Edward to look. This was what she had dreamed. But the miracle was theirs—a spectacularly healthy fast-food discard, born of who knew what godless monster, snatched up by ebullient, shorthaired queers.
Her son had stayed in the hospital for three months, while she remained bedridden at Stradella. It was Winter who visited him, and Winter whom all the nurses knew, and Winter who sat for hours by the incubator after intubations and bloody cut-downs, and Winter who gave Joyce progress reports that she listened to from bed as a grinch would a poorly written fairy tale.
Then one day without warning he was home. He stayed with the Jamaican RN and Oahuan doula in the faraway “servant and sick wing.”
Joyce didn’t touch him for a year. It wasn’t until he was four that she even tried to bathe him, as a dutiful if reluctant penance. He was so damaged that she barely had the stomach. How had anyone expected her to give him a name?
In the noisy steel cask of the MRI, Louis Trotter had much to mull over. A long time coming, Bluey’s grim predicament had nonetheless taken him by surprise; he could not buy her comfort, or even assess her agonies. If she had a cancer, he might help her rally to blast the thing away—or end it all, if that’s what she’d wanted. But this! A once fearless woman now possessed by terrors, trembling with each breath in horror that her mouth had become a broken window to let robbers in … With a violent twitch, he pushed the picture of her away.
He drifted in the diagnostic tube. What was this thing if not a coffin? The digger was, thankfully, not a claustrophobe; no Valium, please. For this particular procedure he was in his element.
He had other concerns—to wit, the grandchildren. Not the girl—he had no worries about the girl to speak of. Lucille Rose possessed an enormous heart and a head for figures, too; a buoyant, practical child certain to have buoyant, practical passions. A dreamer and a nester at once, she was not prodigal, and relished in absorbing the best parts of those around her. She would live to be 102. But the boys … the boys.
Shortly after the existence of Toulouse’s father had been revealed, Edward asked that they convene. When the old man suggested the Withdrawing Room, he demurred, nominating the site of his grandfather’s future memorial instead. Onlookers whispered while the curious pair strolled past the neatly mowed graves of Natalie Wood and Donna Reed.
The boy said he was tired and quite often in pain and had, like his confessor, been preparing a long while for his death. He could share these things, he said, because he knew the rigor and care with which his grandfather had pursued his final home. Edward said he too wished “la última casa”—the last house—to be aesthetically pleasing, and that he’d spent quite a lot of time studying Saint-Cloud’s funerary-commission maquettes. He asked Grandpa Lou into the Mauck (Epitacio had parked adjacent to Irving “Swifty” Lazar) to show him clippings of tombs, stelae and catafalques collected over the last eighteen months, and expressed his desire to be buried in this very park so that his sister and beloved cousin Toulouse might be near him.
Louis Trotter, for all his end-point obsessions, was for life. He was always on the loamy side of life; he had dug the earth for its living riches and would keep on digging to provide for his grandchildren and their children, too—yet in this instance the boy’s wizardry had transformed the old man into a ghoulish handmaiden. This was a sudden, unwelcome fillip given his heretofore charming role as “afterlife hobbyist,” and he felt some guilt because of it. Had he really imagined that his years-long pursuit of a resting place (the mention of which family members assiduously avoided) would go unnoticed by this most brilliant and fragile boy? They were closer than kin that way; Edward, in his superior fashion, had simply made his grandfather do the legwork.
On the day already discussed, the boy left his collection of “memorabilia” with Grandpa Lou, and while he hadn’t looked at them since, he often revisited the events of that afternoon. They had been distracted by the infernally meddlesome Dot Campbell, who’d prattled on about talk shows and orphan diseases; Mr. Trotter pretended to be irritated but was secretly relieved, for the gracious child had been unbearably poignant and he needed to step away. He let out a string of chuffs and walked over to Sling Blade to arrange for the caretaker to accompany the kids on their one and only group field trip to La Colonne.
He had never followed up on their discussion, and it nagged him that his grandson might be planning a “dramatic” exit. But he didn’t know how to follow up on such complicity; he loved that boy and respected him and knew he was doomed, just as he himself was doomed. (As were we all.) Edward had sung his graveside song with such profound elegance and economy that—well, it wasn’t the old man’s style to hand him a pep talk or send him to therapy, as his mother would have done. Who could ever really know how that child suffered? So he let it go. Whenever he saw Edward, at school events or family dinners, there was a wantonness between them, the shorthand charisma of a very married couple who had made their vows on the Day of the Dead.
He ruminated on it as Epitacio drove him from Cedars to the Westwood Village Memorial Park. On the car phone, the doctor said the MRI results were inconclusive. They would need to shoot dye through an artery and see what they could see. Mr. Trotter was surprised that with all the fancy equipment, there was still no clear resolution—so to speak.
Sling Blade, who was raking leaves near the Candlelighters’ parcel, ran over when he saw him stepping from the Rolls.
“What happened?” asked Mr. Trotter as he approached with more than a little speed.
Sling Blade went blank.
“You never told me what happened!”
“You mean—”
“I mean with Mr. Weiner!” he said with great annoyance. “What do you think I mean?”
“Oh! Yessir!” he said bashfully. Then he leaned on his rake and remembered. “Well, we went there, sir.”
“To Boyle Heights,” he prompted.
“Yessir.”
“And there’s a large cemetery there …”
“Yessir.”
“Was it the old Jewish one?”†
“I don’t know, sir. We didn’t go there, anyway. We went to the other one, next door.”
“I see.” He stroked his chin, already intrigued.
“We went inside—there was a book there. And her name was written in it.”
“A book?”
“Yessir. More like a ledger.”
“A ledger,” he said, fascinated. “With ‘Jane Scull’ written down …”
“Scall. It was a misprint. Your friend—Mr. Weiner mentioned it, but I don’t think they’ll do anything about it.”
“And then?”
“He went and paid his respects.”
“Went over to the grave?” The old man chuffed and strained at the caretaker’s appalling dearth of detail.
“Yessir. Kneeled down. Had his book with him.”
“What book?”
“You know—that book he got when I took him to the shelter. The Nowhere book.”
“And the grave?”
“The grave, sir?”
“Man, tell me! What was the grave like? Describe the headstone!”
“Headstone? Oh no, sir—there was nothing like that.”
“No headstone?”
“No sir. They don’t do it like that there.”
“Then how do they do it?” he asked imperiously.
“With little markers on the ground. Little markers with the year written on them.”
“The year? Just the year?”
“Yessir.”
“Just the year? And no names?”
“It’s all grass, just like this.” He pointed to the cemetery flats. “No names or headstones—just little markers with the year.”
Mr. Trotter seemed shocked at the simplicity of the concept, and again set to stroking his chin. He the
n reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a gold money clip whose teeth clamped onto a sheaf of hundreds like a feral dog’s. He loosened a few bills and palmed them toward Sling Blade.
“No, sir, not today,” said the caretaker, retreating.
“And why?”
“It’s all right, sir.”
“Don’t be a fool!”
“I can’t, sir, not today.”
“Is it your pride?”
“No, sir—”
“But I didn’t pay you for the day you drove him there! I don’t like people doing things for free. Now take it!”
“Sir, something happened,” he said, still stepping back, head hung low. “It was my fault, and I didn’t tell you about it. And I don’t want to take your money.”
“Happened? What happened?”
“The boy, sir—Toulouse. He went along.”
“He went what?—”
Epitacio started in their direction; the old man’s posture had turned apoplectic enough to hint at a return trip to the diagnostic center whence they had come.
“It was a mistake, sir—a game, he said. He was hiding in the Mauck.”
“Hiding?”
“Climbed in, evidently, when I picked up the truck at Stradella. Hid in the cabinet the whole way, sir! Didn’t even know he was there till we got where we were going. Then he asked me to send him home in a taxi, but I wouldn’t let him, sir, no sir, so he stayed on. Sat in the front seat.”
“My God. Did they speak?”
“Who, sir?” (The old man had forgotten the caretaker was in the dark.) “You mean, Mr. Weiner and the boy? Why no, sir, they didn’t. But he was terribly upset.”
“The boy?”
“Why no, sir—Mr. Weiner was. Over his loss. Cried all the way to Santa Barbara. Never stopped! I don’t think he even noticed the boy.”
“Now, isn’t that something!—”
The old man scratched his chin, which was, to Sling Blade’s observation, auspicious.
“But the boy was very respectful, sir, I’ll say that. You would have been proud.” He nodded his head, saying more than he knew. “Honored the man, very much so. Honored him.”
“That little son of a bitch.” Mr. Trotter grew contemplative before shrugging his shoulders. “Well—I suppose there’s no stopping him … a stowaway!”
“My fault, sir. Should’ve checked. But, you see, I’d left the kids only two minutes before. I was sure they were all still in that room when I—”
Both caretaker and chauffeur were surprised to see his scowl replaced by a leprechaun’s grin, ear to ear. A laugh issued forth that neither had heard before; like a bee to nectar drawn, Dot Campbell dive-bombed from a hundred yards. Epitacio hustled to shut the door after the old man, who had jauntily climbed in front. As Dot came in for a landing, he uncharacteristically ordered his driver to brake.
“Hello, Mrs. Campbell!” he said, convulsed.
“Hello, Mr. Trotter! Happy mood today?”
“Happy, happy, yes! Happy indeed! And why wouldn’t I be? My little son of a bitch grandson is a stowaway!”
We will soon return to star-crossed father and son, remaining at their side for the duration (more or less) of our tale. But first the author must digress. Let us turn our attentions to an old—not so very old—standby, whose fortunes had fallen significantly enough in the last forty days to displace him to the rankling of Forbes’s number thirty-seven. It can be sworn that he will never fall much farther than that.
Dodd Trotter descended upon Stradella House, having just returned from India, St. Petersburg and Seoul. He was on the phone with his mother, who was resting comfortably at her Woodland Hills cottage complex, Winter and the gilded book of obituaries faithfully at hand.
“Did you see the picture, Doddie?” asked the old woman.
“What picture, Mother?”
“In the paper today.”
“I’ve just come home—didn’t get a chance to look. Is it in the Times?”
“So handsome.”
“Who, Mother?”
“There’s a beautiful loafer with a tassel lying there.”
“The Times? New York or L.A.?”
“Do you remember the loafers we used to get you from Church’s, Doddie?”
“I do.”
“This loafer—it’s just lying there on the platform. Right where people wait for the subway. A couple got married. Young, handsome couple. I think he worked in public relations. They have money. They took the train to get married. Impetuous. One of those spontaneous things. Fun. And, suddenly, he doesn’t feel so well and he goes outside—the space between cars? For fresh air, Doddie. And they think he just—well, they’re not sure! Electrocuted. So handsome! You should see the picture.”
“That’s awful.”
“And, Doddie, another race-car driver died. Not a very well known one—they all die the same way now. You see, they’re very good at restraining their bodies, but they don’t have anything that holds the head or the neck, so when they crash, they just go wild in there. Those cars are like little cages, Doddie! They gush blood from their mouths and noses like a fire hydrant. Terrible. The people who get to them first—a horrible thing. Because you see, Doddie, they keep that image in their heads for years. Just like water from a hydrant; that’s how they all say it looks. In ten seconds you’re completely emptied out.” Before he could speak, she began to sing, a soft thread that tightened into steel wire. “ ‘Woodenhead Jones was uh-fat and uh-funny, dumber than sticks and stones … an’ that’s just why the kids all called him Woodenhead Puddin’-head Jones!’ ”
“—Mother?—”
“ ‘Teacher told his mother she would take him by the hand—teach him a thing or two … like his older brother he began to under-stand, he learned ev’ry-thing she ever knew!’—”
“Mother? Are you all right?”
The old nanny wrestled the phone away and assured him she just needed to be fed. Bluey shrieked like a zoo monkey, berating and mimicking Winter as she hung up.
Dodd asked the driver to take him to his office in Beverly Hills before going home.
When he passed through the lobby, the guard said his secretary was in. That wasn’t unusual, even on a Sunday (though Dodd discouraged it). Frances-Leigh, a widow, didn’t exactly need the extra income; even with the bears having raided the picnic, she still held some $7 million in Quincunx stock.
Her face fell when she saw him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Marcie Millard just called. I’m not quite sure why she called here, on the weekend …”
“That’s obvious—she didn’t want to talk to anyone. What did she say?”
Frances-Leigh took a breath. “She said the Board said they weren’t going to go ahead with the proposal. She said they made a decision to restore and rebuild and draw from city funds.”
“When did they make that decision?”
“Well, they hadn’t made it officially, but she said she’d spoken to three members over the weekend and they said that naming the school after you would be impossible—politically and legally—and that they were going to deal with everything on Wednesday. She sounded very upset.”
“That’s just so asinine—I mean, if that’s the focus. It’s just crazy. Because my name on that school has never been an issue.”
“I told her that.”
“I couldn’t have made that clearer to Marcie or the Board.”
“She said the Board was very flattered by your—your vision of— your commitment—this is what she said—and they were going to call—they wanted to talk to you about a sculpture garden—Marcie said something about a sculpture garden, her kids were screaming in the back and I could hardly hear—a sculpture garden or maybe a fountain they were thinking about having in front of the school, you know, as you go into the main entrance …”
“We’ll get the attorneys into it in the morning.”
Frances-Leigh closed her lips in solidarity. She knew how mu
ch the project meant to him; it had become his grand passion. And so noble—it didn’t seem fair. She rested her hand on the museum-board base of the maquette.
A Frank Gehry–designed gallery space crowned the rooftop park like an ecstatic, silvery wimple. Dodd’s plan was to revolve paintings through from his collection—Ruscha and Matisse in spring, van Gogh and Fischl in summer, Rothko and Chardin in fall, Pollock and Rembrandt in winter—so that students could live amidst art instead of having to do the museum dance.
“Well, maybe it’s not over—they’d be crazy not to build it, especially with the economy in the shape it’s in. They can’t afford not to.” She wasn’t even sure he was listening. “We still have a ton of options. We could quietly bring it to the media … let public opinion decide.”
“No,” he said vigorously. “I’d get ripped a new asshole, pardon my French. Why isn’t he doing this for the impoverished? Why is he lavishing money on the already rich?”
“Your record speaks for itself. The Quincunx educational fund has already given away seventy million dollars in scholarships—”
“Oh, they don’t care about that. Here’s the better copy: BILLIONAIRE BULLISH ON VANITY SHRINE FOR SPOILED BRATS. You know—the Xanadu angle. Maybe I should just call it a Holocaust museum–cum–teaching institute—that way nobody’d bitch! They’d greenlight it right away.” He laughed, then became mindful of his secretary; he didn’t want to appear too bitter. “I appreciate your feelings, Frances-Leigh, but this was supposed to be a very personal project. You know that’s how I wanted it—from the beginning. Check your egos at the door. That’s why we needed to go under the radar.” He sighed, lightly tracing the arc of the nun’s habit with his finger. “Sometimes we live in a little world, filled with little people. And little people don’t like big dreams.”
