Bodies and Souls

by John Rechy

  Excited, she peered over his shoulder and read: “ ‘See Los Angeles Destroyed Hourly!’ Ugh! Who'd want to see that!”

  “Just special effects,” Jesse said. “I thought you loved movies.”

  “The all-times, yes, but who wants to be right there and see Los Angeles destroyed? You go, Jesse, not me!” she said.

  Jesse trudged on through his guide. “ ‘Last Supper window, Hall of the Crucifixion and Resurrection, the Mystery of Life brook— …”

  Orin said, “Where's that?”

  “Forest Lawn. A cemetery, real famous.”

  “No, no, no!” Lisa protested. Earthquakes! Now a cemetery!

  Jesse shot at her: “It's also got a Swiss Village, and Wee Kirk o’ the Heather, and it's free!”

  Heather. Cathy and Heathcliff gathered heather on the craggy rocks they converted into their castle. Just before she died, Cathy asked him to get her some heather. Lisa stroked Pearl's glossy hair. Two or three strands came out. She shoved them away in horror; one clung to her finger, and she rubbed it urgently against the bed.

  “It's got a Court of David, the Great Mausoleum, and the Court of Freedom for the patriotic dead. And the Little Church of Flowers, where you can sit on two stone chairs and make a wish— …”

  “In a cemetery?” Lisa went over to see whether Jesse was making all this up. He wasn't.

  “It's more than just a cemetery,” Jesse said. “It says here the builder's dream was to have a resting place for the departed where it wouldn't feel like death— … There's God's Garden, too, where you can meditate— …”

  They drove along Los Feliz Boulevard, a graceful area of pines, palm trees, carpets of grass, splashes of flowers, old Spanish-style apartment buildings with terraces showered by bougainvillea. From the hills, elegant houses glance at the surrounding greenery. Nearby, the sprawling acres of Griffith Park are commanded by the green dome of the Observatory.

  Jesse decided not to point out their proximity to the park—although he saw Orin look at it. Jesse had insisted to himself that he'd chosen their destination today. Cody was shrewd, like that.

  Orin punched the radio on. The news station: “… —rising hot winds an increasing danger of fire— …”

  “Aw, Orin, not the news right now,” Jesse pled. “We know it's hot.”

  Orin shrugged.

  Delighted by his own assertiveness, Jesse tuned in the station he had barely flirted with once—the country and Western one. The moany music invaded the classy Cadillac. The singer was pining over aches, deep hurts “in this old heart.” Jesse leaned back, tapped his booted feet—but he didn't want to touch Lisa's thigh with his leg. Last night festered too mysteriously.

  “I think Orin likes Western music—look how cute he's shaking his head,” Lisa teased. She liked the sounds, too; a woman singer was now bemoaning love unsustained, “driven out of town, being around.”

  Orin stopped his slight movement.

  “It was real cute,” Lisa said regretfully. “You didn't have to stop, Orin.”

  Orin returned the dial to the news. Jesse shot a mean look at Lisa. Lisa adjusted Pearl again on the back seat.

  “… —the controversial cardinal said,” the radio announcer spoke. “Senator Hutchens accused the cardinal of arousing the—quote—'worst— …”

  Orin silenced the radio as the Cadillac drove past the portals of Forest Lawn Cemetery.

  At its entrance was the Swiss Village, where arrangements for interment are made in a chalet. Paved roads swirl into low green hills. At regular intervals large open books made of cement offer directions to: The Crucifixion/Resurrection, Museum and Memento Shop, Church of the Recessional, Court of the Christus, Mystery of Life Garden, Court of David, Wee Kirk o’ the Heather, The Last Supper, the Great Mausoleum, Court of Freedom, and the Garden of Memories.

  In perfect rows on the green hills, square white tombstones are decorated here and there with fresh flowers or brave little fluttering American flags. The tombstones are presided over at irregular intervals by large statues of briefly attired, clinging-clothed bodies, muscular men, soft women.

  As they drove up higher, an enormous statue of David, perhaps seventeen feet tall, loomed ahead.

  They parked, got out. “My God, his thing's uncovered,” Lisa giggled.

  Tourists roamed everywhere, chattering, taking pictures. Orin, Lisa, and Jesse stood looking up at the reproduction of Michelangelo's athletic youth, the pubic hair swirling over the nestling uncircumcised penis.

  “It's so sexy!” Lisa said. She wandered about the figure, looking up at his firm white buttocks. “And look at those muscles right at his waist.”

  “I got those,” Jesse said. And opened another button of his shirt.

  “Oh, you!” Lisa said. “Jealous of a statue. I know you have them, and Orin has them, too— …” She turned to confront Orin's wrath; aghast, she realized she had evoked last night. But Orin did not react.

  To David's right is the entrance to his court. In the square courtyard, the radiating eroticism of bodies carved in stone—nude male wrestlers in a position of proximate penetration, languorously veiled girl-women, romping buxom children, round-breasted mothers—is recurrently contradicted by soft titles—’ ‘The Dream of Peace,” “The Good Night Statue.”

  Jesse was getting aroused by the bare breasts and thighs; he felt guilty because this was, after all, a cemetery, bodies buried all over the place. But he was getting hornier and hornier these days.

  Hands knotted behind him, Orin stood before a carved pageant called “The Mystery of Life.” A message on a metal box instructed visitors to punch a red button and hear a recorded description of the sculpture. Orin pushed the button.

  The strong voice of a man pointed out that there are eighteen figures about a brook, which represents the flow of life, its mystery: a youngish dreamer, a boy, a scientist, a grandmother, a family, a philosopher, lovers, a monk, an artist, a stoic, a fool. “The mystic stream flows from an unseen source toward an unseen destination … the meaning of that mysterious force we call life.”

  “Forest Lawn has found the answer to the Mystery of Life,” a carved stone announces.

  “Gentle reader, what is your interpretation?”

  Orin read that aloud from the carved words. Then he stared up at the sun, his eyes open, unblinking.

  “Orin, stop that!” Lisa said. “You'll go blind!”

  The blue haunted eyes looked at her, and he nodded.

  Trapped in Orin's silence, they drove past the Court of Freedom—soldiers buried amid twenty-five patriotic scenes, flags.

  Above the beautifully combed green hills, a museum and gift shop offers slides, photographs, postcards, and small reproductions of the cemetery's art. The museum is adjacent to the Hall of the Crucifixion.

  Lisa, Jesse, and Orin entered the large hall, like a theater. A hush hovered like a balloon over the collected tourists as the block-long painting was unveiled: Christ stands in a white robe, ready for the cross. About him colored figures prepare their anguish.

  Orin drove to the building that houses the Last Supper Window. Again they sat with solemn tourists while a voice vaunted the economic advantages of burial at Forest Lawn. To the piped music of “Going Home,” a glass mosaic version of Da Vinci's “Last Supper” revealed a glowing blond Christ among fading apostles.

  On their way out, they passed the statue of a cold white angel.

  Outside they read “The Builder's Creed.” Statues of two chubby children stand looking up at the carved stone explaining that this—“God's Acre”—banishes death from the site of burial.

  The Cadillac floated down the hills again.

  “Orin, the heather! Let's find the heather,” Lisa said.

  At the Wee Kirk o’ the Heather, next to the Church of the Recessional—for weddings and funerals—Lisa was disappointed. There was no heather. She had expected to offer some up to Cathy on the moors. But there were two stone chairs for a bride and a groom to sit on and make
a wish. Lisa sat there. “Come on!” she called to Orin and Jesse. “Sit with me!” There was a place for only one groom. As upright as real, nervous grooms, Orin and Jesse flanked Lisa. Impulsively, she reached out for their hands, Jesse's hot, Orin's cold.

  The Cadillac flowed to the exit of the park. Next to it was a lake. Swans floated like white question marks. “Please!” Lisa pled, and Orin parked.

  Pulling Pearl along, Lisa ran toward the lake. Jesse and Orin followed her. At the edge of the water are statues of naked children and a young girl just sprouting breasts. Lisa touched the girl.

  “Children die,” Lisa said. She lay back on the grass, arranged Pearl in the curve of her belly, and closed her eyes—dead with her child, no, with her mother, no— …

  Orin asked her, “Are you dead or is Pearl dead?”

  Lisa sat up. “I'm not sure.”

  In the car as they drove out, Orin unleashed his gathered judgment of the cemetery: “Fake!” He clutched the steering wheel as they rode away from the site of decorated, denied death.

  It was just after noon. Freeway traffic flowed easily. They drove for more than half an hour. In the somber mood, Jesse did not risk turning on the radio. “Going to Venice,” Orin finally announced. Jesse had become an expert at finding their destinations. He consulted his map. “Off here … left … right.” And there it was: Venice Beach.

  “ ‘The Venice of America,’ “ Jesse refreshed their memories from the description in his guide: “ ‘Canals, gondolas.’ The man who built it planned to include it all: ‘Sixteen miles of waterways were dredged and he commissioned structures in the style of the Italian … Rey-nay-sense to be on the site. He intended to import singing gon-doll-eers, set up an Oriental Art Gallery, sponsor a scientific aquarium.’ Wow! Then they found oil.”

  Orin parked in a lot near palm trees hugging each other before giving up to miles of sand, more miles of ocean stretching to the end of the world. Reckless waves challenged the hot whipping wind.

  Along concrete walks bordering the beach—and despite the gasps of wind—teenaged skaters glided by, their ears covered with enormous rubber “muffs” connected to portable radios, silent for everyone else; private music. Here and there—lingering from a time long gone—the skinny bodies of men and women, black and white, gather to smoke marijuana, drink wine under green-benched, wrought iron shelters, vestiges of the original plan to create a replica of the Italian city. The beat of a bongo drum was funereal as a youngwoman danced to the rhythm of her inner frenzy. Old Jewish delicatessens feature cured meats, soda pop. On more green benches sit old people with skins like crinkled brown paper. Bodies are everywhere, going nowhere, slowly frenetic, as if idleness had found its own motion.

  It was becoming so hot that Orin no longer wore his light jacket—but only one shirt button remained open. Whenever he could, Jesse would remove his shirt, like now. Lisa lowered her blouse as the three walked along the white horizon. Birds gathering in strange hypnotized bands on the sand faced the frothing ocean. Cautiously, before they scattered into shifting air, Orin approached the birds. He studied them, and then he looked out at the ocean, as if following their mesmerized stare to its hidden origin beyond the water.

  On the sand, brown bodies, male and female, seminude, lay like sacrifices to the sun; casualties of a luxurious catastrophe, scattered at different angles as if a dazzling centrifugal force had flung them out, beautifully.

  “Bodies,” Orin said.

  The three sat on a portion of beach sparser than others. Everywhere else, people congregated in tight protection in the same areas. Jesse leaned back on the sand. He was so aware of Lisa, so aware, of the fresh, sexual smell of her body. Damn Orin! Quickly he pulled back his curse.

  Lisa hugged her knees. Orin still stood before the water, in that way he had of looking, as if to locate an essence, a mystery.

  “Does the ocean talk to you, Orin?” Lisa said dreamily.

  “To everybody,” Orin said lightly.

  The ocean thundered incoherently against the wind.

  “I thought it might talk to you,” Lisa said. I … love … you and Jesse, Orin, she tested the words—the one word—in her mind. She had never “loved” anyone before, and even now she couldn't be entirely sure because she really didn't know what “loving” felt like, what it was. How she felt about the all-times and their movie heroines, yes, that had to be “love.” But for anyone real? I love you, Orin, I love you, Jesse, she tested again more easily; yes, I love you both. If she really tested it—by saying it aloud—Orin would probably turn his back and say, You shouldn't, and then she would be even more confused, not knowing whether he was right or not.

  They walked away from the beach. The moist heat clung to them. Along the piazza, a phantom of what it had been, a phantom of what it had wanted to be, columns are splashed with gaudy purple, the remains of buildings left to collapse. The area looks like a mixture of sets from different movies.

  They walked across the expiring piazza and into an area of ordinary houses—and then to the canals. There are several, each bearing the name of a via in Venice. Small bridges jump over murky strips of water. At the sides of the canals, houses remain, weathered. They walked along the periphery of a canal.

  “I forgot Pearl; I left her in the car,” Lisa remembered with remorse.

  “Leave her to herself now and then,” Orin soothed.

  “Shhh! Don't talk so loud. My mommie tried to kill herself again yesterday and she's resting now,” a skinny little boy, eight or nine years old, admonished them. He was shirtless, barefoot. His ribs showed like fingers on his sides.

  t 4’

  “What!” Orin seemed to push the boy's words away. “My mommie—I said she's sleeping; she tried to kill herself again yesterday.” He made a stiff finger and sliced it across the wrist of his other hand; then he did the same with that one and sliced across the other.

  “No,” Lisa winced.

  “What's your name?” Orin lifted the boy easily.

  “Teddy.”

  “You want some ice cream, Teddy?” Orin asked.

  “I guess,” Teddy said without much enthusiasm. He looked back at the house. Then he skipped along as the three walked back to the main section of Venice. Lisa hoped for a Baskin-Robbins—it puzzled her that she had not remembered to have one—again—but there wasn't any. No matter; the outdoor shop they went to—with red tables like peppermint—had ice cream just as good, perhaps better.

  Eating his ice cream, Teddy shook his head. “She shouldn't of, my father told her and told her: Don't ever do that again, we live with your death, he told her—that's the third time she's tried. Cuts weren't deep, though—they never are. We live with death, that's what he says to her. Wanna see Venice?” he asked them.

  “We already— …” Jesse started. He felt sorry for the kid, but he couldn't help it—he made Jesse uncomfortable.

  “Yeah! Show it to us, Teddy,” Orin said.

  Teddy became an expert guide. “A crazy old guy wanted to make this like a foreign city, but see over there— …” He pointed to oil drills, which looked like dinosaurs plundering the land. “Oil. Everything stopped for the oil.”

  He darted into Speedway, a long stretch that is part alley, part street paralleling the beach. In the ashen orange glow of the aging sun, bodies wandered along the accumulating garbage. “You know what hippies are?” Teddy asked.

  “Sure,” Jesse said. “I remember ‘em.” “We still got them,” Teddy said. “That house over there? Full of them. A long time ago they used to call them flower children.”

  “The cops killed them off,” Jesse James said. “Just some,” Teddy said. “Some're still around.” He spoke as if they were the same ones, transported from that time to this time.

  Orin maneuvered toward the house the boy pointed to. It was wooden, two-storeyed; panes were missing from its glass-walled porch. Orin walked up the stairs. He tried the door. Open. Teddy peered in.

  From the steps, Lisa and Jesse wa
ited apprehensively as Orin disappeared with Teddy into the house.

  Inside, the house was broken up into units, rooms. A door along the hall was open. Teddy at his side, Orin walked in. Within a determinedly bright room, they were assaulted fiercely by colors; rugs, pillows on the floor, cloth draped in loose arcs from the ceiling, flowers—some, most, wilted. A giant poster of an old East Indian man with flowing grayish hair was mounted on a beaded drape against a wall. The benign smile on the man's face was relentlessly blissful. Before the picture, like offerings at an altar, were stones, shells, trinkets, pieces of broken glass, a piece of fruit. The fruit—a pear or an apple—was rotting. Greedy cockroaches fed on it.

  Orin walked out, with Teddy.

  “What you see?” Jesse asked.

  “Decay,” Orin said.

  They wandered along the beach. The sun was surrendering, leaving behind dark heat. Only a few bodies remained on the sand, abandoned corpses after the major cleanup. On Westwind, near Speedway, two men were squashed into a cramped doorway. “Shootin’ up,” Teddy announced knowledgeably. One man tightened a handkerchief about his arm, the other plunged a needle into it. “We live with death,” Teddy echoed his father and shook his head. “Gotta get back!” he said abruptly. “If she wakes up alone— …” He sliced at his wrist with a finger.

  They walked back with him. Before the door of the canal house and against smothered lights from inside, a woman stood, her wrists wrapped with fresh stark-white bandages. Teddy ran to her and hugged her legs. “Mommie.” She didn't move. She held up her wrists, as if they were precious trophies she must protect. “Mommie.” Teddy buried himself into her.

  Orin walked to the woman. As if bending to hold Teddy tenderly, he put his hands over the boy's ears, and simultaneously he looked up at the woman and said: