by Bruce Wagner
She entered the cavernous room in haphazard search of a table.
“Rachel!”
She spun around. Standing there was her brother, Simon.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, dismayed.
“I got a call from Schwartzee—there’s something dead in the basement. Could be Lazarus! Or should I say Charlton Heston.”
He wore a dark suit and looked thoroughly in his element—the Dead Pet Detective, born-again. Simon had left a slew of messages that she hadn’t returned.
“You never called me back!” he said, oddly enthusiastic.
“I was going to. I’ve been real busy, Simon.”
“I was just wondering if there was any way I could get with your boss.”
“Simon, I’ve already told you, Perry doesn’t know any of the Blue Matrix people—”
“Oh come on, Rachel! All those people know each other.”
“That’s not necessarily how it works.”
“I have three scripts, okay? Can’t you at least get one to your boss?”
“Simon, let’s not talk about this now.”
“Where are you sitting?”
“Not with you. I’m with about twenty people.”
“Well, excuuuussse meeeeee!” She started to go. “Wait! What does a man with a ten-inch penis have for breakfast?”
Rachel was beyond ill will; she didn’t even feel like leaving anymore. She had accepted her lot as among the condemned.
“Uh, well,” Simon stammered, “let’s see now. Uh, I had two eggs, toast…a glass of o.j.—” He cracked himself up as she moved away.
A blithe, bitchy couple sat across. The woman let everyone know they’d met during one of Schwartzee’s relationship seminars at the Bel Air Radisson. On Rachel’s left was an overweight, attractive Canadian called Alberta. Mordecai, the lovestruck schlemiel with braces, hovered breathlessly, too nervous to sit beside her; he took a chair by the great Province. The place beside Rachel remained empty, a sitting target for the requisite Elijah jokes.
After her father’s death, Rachel’s family joined the landlocked diaspora of the faithless. She had been so far and so long away from the water that the dizzying, chimerical ceremonies at hand made her feel like an ethnographer in the field: symbolic foods on plate, the leaning to the left, naming of plagues—boils, hail, cattle disease, slaying of firstborn…like crashing a meeting of freemasons. Yet when she heard the congregants’ intonations and the indomitable old songs of her father, her otherness burned away. Schwartzee’s six-year-old son (the fertile rabbi’s latest) took to the stage and sang a flitting, singsong prayer. Rachel blotted her tears with the hackneyed inventory of images: Sy at the pulpit, mighty and dour, a gray, businesslike Moses, neck vibrating like a turkey’s when he sang; huge white hands and slicked-back hair; fat gold ring.
Schwartzee asked how many commandments were in the Bible. Someone raised a hand and shouted, “Six hundred and thirteen!” Rachel puzzled over that one during the ritual hand washing. She asked Alberta about it.
“You’re not really supposed to say anything after the washing of the hands,” the big woman said. “Until you eat the matzo.”
“Oh! I’m sorry.”
“Sit in the corner,” said Mordecai, leaning over to be seen. “No matzo for you tonight!”
“It’s tradition,” said Alberta, contritely. “I mean you can, but you’re not supposed to.”
“Then I won’t,” said Rachel, unperturbed.
Mordecai shushed her, holding up an admonitory finger. “Please reply in the universal sign language.”
“It’s all right—really!” said Alberta. “I just wanted to tell you what was traditional.” To her annoyance, Mordecai sang a few bars of “Tradition” from Fiddler on the Roof.
“Schwartzee’s seders tend to go till midnight,” said the woman across, to no one in particular. The boyfriend watched the waiters like a hawk, making sure to get double portions. Timing was everything.
A woman in her sixties was ushered to the vacant seat along with edgy Elijah jokes from the hawk-eyed man, who clearly regarded her arrival as a threat to the food bank. Birdie was from New York and, as it turned out, a cantor’s daughter. She ran a mortuary in the Fairfax district, a chevra kaddisha, or “holy society.” Rachel remarked how difficult it must be to work in such a place, but the woman said it was “her greatest mitzvah.” Birdie was a shomer, a member of a volunteer group that attend the dead before burial. She explained that shomer meant “watcher.” Mordecai made a dumb eavesdroppy joke about “birdie-watching” and the woman tensed her lips in a bloodless smile.
Birdie’s father died just last year, at ninety-five; it surprised her Rachel’s loss had come so long ago. Spontaneously, the younger woman offered that he had been killed.
“What is your last name?” Birdie asked.
“Krohn.”
She stared at her plate, then turned and looked at Rachel with a dead blue eye. “I knew your father,” she said.
“You—knew—”
“Yes. My husband did his taharah.”
“His what?”
“Your father’s taharah. The ritual cleansing—the prayers. He sat with your father before he was buried.”
Perry Needham Howe
He took Jersey to all the black-tie benefits and still, hardly anyone knew. That’s how he wanted it. He felt strangely invisible—imperishable, even—a dapper traveler incognito in the land of the living. He hadn’t succumbed to the savage placebos that made one a bald vomit-machine: that would be sheer cowardice. Perry wanted to die on his own terms, not like some whore pretending to be a hero.
They went to the Bistro Gardens for the Hospice of the Canyon, an outpatient program in Calabasas for the terminally ill. Perry liked the irony. He cracked death jokes under his breath, but Jersey wasn’t up to playing Mrs. Muir. A few friends knew, with his permission—like Iris Cantor, their great guide. Iris had networked them through Memorial Sloan-Kettering and was there tonight, along with the usual crowd. There were bevvies of doctors and nurses (Jersey felt like buttonholing Leslie Trott and pouring her heart out) and a monsignor, for show.
On Saturday, it was Suzan Hughes’s birthday at Greyhall mansion. The former Miss Petite USA had married the perennially handsome founder of Herbalife. Jersey was active in the Herbalife Family Foundation for at-risk children, as she was in Haven House, Path, Thalians, Childhelp, D.A.R.E., Share, the Children’s Action Network, the H.E.L.P. Group, the League for Children, Operation Children and the Carousel of Hope. All the “ladies who lunch” loved Jersey Stabile Howe’s energy—and thought Perry was gorgeous, like a young Mike Silverman. Something of the Cary Grant about him. The tragedy of their son’s death was well known and bestowed another, popular facet: they had the dignified weight of a handsome couple who had journeyed to “another country” and come back with slides for future tourists. The ladies spoke of Montgomery as one would an infantine lama, snatched from their midst to fulfill a greater prophecy—cosmic honors to which aggrieved parents must perforce acquiesce.
Jersey wondered what would happen when they found out about Perry; he’d be wasting away by then. The ladies might even revile her misfortune, secretly dubbing it over-kill. (That was a sick thought.) There was nothing to do but master the art of crying in public restrooms. She’d tough it out, had to for Rosetta’s sake, her beautiful little girl. Jersey knew how to cope: she drank Kombucha mushroom tea by the gallon, washing down Zoloft and Ativan. To outlive one’s husband and son! She perversely looked forward to the ladies’ memorial attentions. For now, all she could do was natter about environmental carcinogens—leukemia in the suburbs, toxic seepage, government lies. And across the world, the doomsday cover-up of the corroding containment husk around Chernobyl’s reactor number four.
Stage four…Reactor number—
The Bistro gardenias weren’t completely sold, worried their young friend might be truffle-hunting too far afield. They were more at ease with orphanages an
d battered women, AIDS and oddball diseases. What chance did plain-wrap adenocarcinoma stand against pediatric exotica? Standing there between Vanna White and a bloated Charlene Tilton, Jersey watched her beautiful blue—blazered husband and blinked back the image of him stone cold dead. Guiltily, she watched the Tadao Ando—designed monolith rise before her: THE PERRY (AND JERSEY?) NEEDHAM HOWE CENTER FOR EARLY DETECTION. The betrayal was more than she could bear—how could she? There was Jay Leno and Steve Allen, LeVar Burton and Charo, Pia Zadora and someone from Laugh-In whose name she couldn’t remember. Perry hooked his arm in hers and charmed the lot of them, all the while turning over the one thing that had possessed him since Club Bayonet: II Destriero Scafusia.
Rachel contacted its makers, and the International Watch Company FedExed a cassette along with a small hardback catalogue. Within the latter was an inventory of prices—a “moon phase skeleton model” pocket watch available in yellow gold, at sixty thousand; a Da Vinci wristwatch, for over a hundred. There were Portofinos, Novecentos and Ingenieurs—and, of course, the rather modest looking eighteen-carat rose-gold Destriero, a grande complication that stood, trěs grande, at a cool quarter of a million.
The watch itself was crafted in the village of Schaffhausen on the banks of the Rhine. Destriero was the name given to a jouster’s steed; one easily imagined such knightly trials unfolding hard by the medieval castle—built from plans designed by Albrecht Dürer—that overlooked the town. Just what was a “super complicated” watch? The voice on the tape explained a mechanism could only be classified as such if three elements came together in its movement: chronograph, perpetual calendar and minute repeater. Among collectors, “minute repeaters” were the most coveted. They were the watches that chimed the hour, quarter-hour and minute, an action originally devised for the blind.
Perry lingered over a bit of text: “Firmly secured inside the movement is a replacement century display slide, which can be installed at the end of the twenty-second century and will continue showing the correct year until the end of twenty-four ninety-nine A.D.” Heady stuff, though he wasn’t exactly sure what it meant. There were other details hard to fathom, such as the Destriero’s unique ball-bearing-mounted “flying” tourbillon (eight vibrations per second) that was described as a kind of cage made of anti-magnetic, ultra-light titanium. The tourbillon was invented right after the French Revolution, its function being to improve accuracy by counteracting the earth’s gravitational pull on the balance.
The catalogue ended with a flourish. “Fin de Siěcle: The Grand Finale—This Is What Will Happen at Midnight on 31 December 1999. At precisely this moment, the most complicated wristwatch the world has ever seen will come into its own, as a multitude of functions start taking place simultaneously.” The final paragraphs walked one through the horological ballet, ending with the changing of the millennium guard. “A figure ‘twenty’ replaces the ‘nineteen’ in the date display of the II Destriero…and the twenty-first century since the birth of Christ has begun.”
Tovah called, wanting drinks at the Bel Air. He opted for breakfast at the Four Seasons instead—that felt safer. He wasn’t going to cry himself a river and he wasn’t going to fuck his brains out behind the cancer blues. Not his style.
What she proposed was a “special project,” a television movie about the remarkable life and death of his son, Montgomery. Perry felt trivialized, ready to be offended. Tovah stiffened. Then he laughed and the agent smiled.
“I hope it’s all right, my—”
“It’s fine. It’s fine,” Perry said, suddenly emotional.
“Rachel told me the story. I just thought it was so amazing.”
“A lot of people did.”
“And I wondered why no one ever—did anyone ask if you and Jersey—”
“I think Aaron and I talked about it. And Jim Brooks—we played a lot of basketball together. But I don’t think Jersey and I were up for it. It really took the wind out of us. The idea of revisiting…”
“I’m sorry—”
“No no no. Maybe it’s time,” he said, tapping his glass with a fingernail. “Maybe it’s been long enough.”
Ursula Sedgwick
“She’s not coming,” said Sara.
“Shit,” said Ursula, disappointed. “Why not?”
“Because,” said Phylliss, “I’m a crabby cunt.” She padded to the kitchen and retrieved a carton of Merits from the old Amana.
Sara Radisson was a casting agent who had worked on a movie of Phylliss’s that never happened. There was money from a divorce. After the split, Sara took the baby and lived awhile with her mom in Minnesota. It was a hard time; Phylliss was going through changes of her own. When the producer discovered Eckankar, she ordered Sara to visit the Temple of ECK, in Chanhassen—right near her mom’s place. Phylliss said that was no coincidence. There had to be a reason she wound up so close to the source.
Sara was a seeker. She found plenty of chelas, students of the Mahanta. She chanted Hu and was initiated on the Inner. One night, the ECK Master Rebazar Tarzs came to her in a dream and said it was time to stop running. The ECK Master (a pure blue light) said she should return to Los Angeles and complete unfinished business with two women she knew from a past life. When Sara awoke, Phylliss Wolfe and Holly Hunter hung before her like illuminated cameos. She got on the phone to Venice and the tears poured out in a stinging, soulful rush. Within a week, Sight Unseen had been sold to Lifetime, with Holly and Phylliss committing to star and produce.
“We know you’re a crabby cunt. But you still have to go.”
“I didn’t even hear about this thing.”
“I told you last week.”
“My womb is tired and bleeding.”
“So that’s it.”
Ursula was stumped.
“phyll thought she was pregnant.”
“By who?”
“Some Abbot Kinney bimbo.”
“Is it serious?”
“Of course, it’s serious. He’s a selected donor.”
“She means, selected at Hal’s—from the bar.”
“Is that safe, Phyll? I mean, has he been tested?”
“Yes, Mother. And I’m telling you,” she said, hands to crotch, “this model has got to go. If Larry Hagman gets a new liver, Phylliss Wolfe sure as shit wants a new womb.”
“Annie, Get Your Womb.”
“You need a transplant.”
“The girl from Baywatch.”
“No! From Friends—”
“Amateur hour, baby. I need me a professional womb, a Meryl Streep —Mare Winningham model, industrial-strength. I want me a litter.”
“How many does Meryl have?”
“Four, at last count. Mare has, like, twelve.”
“Meryl has four? I thought it was three.”
“Don’t quibble.”
“Come on, Phyll, please come.” Ursula rubbed her neck. “It’ll be fun. It’ll get you out of your mood. Pretty please?”
“You guys go. I just want to sit in bed and watch Bewitched. I have an inclination to see Dick York, pre—dementia.”
“Oh all right,” said Sara. “I guess someone has to baby-sit that big bratty uterus of yours.”
“Damn straight. And that’s ‘cervix’ to you.”
Ursula gathered up her things. “Tiff, do you want to come with us or do you want to stay with crabby Phylliss?”
“Go with you!”
“See?” said Phylliss. “Kids instinctively know to shun a barren woman.”
Sara asked if it was okay to leave her baby, and Phylliss insisted. “It’s high time,” she said, “that Samson bonded with Dick York. You know, a little imprinting couldn’t hurt.”
On the way to the ECK Center potluck, Sara talked about Sight Unseen. She was becoming another person, she said, and the book was part of that transformation. She talked about the divorce and what it was like to live with her mom again—the bond between mothers and daughters. Ursula reached back and grabbed Tiffany’s bare foo
t, almost the size of her own.
“Are you writing the movie too?”
“No way! We’re trying for Beth Henley—she wrote Crimes of the Heart. There is no way I could write a script. I could barely do the book!”
“Phyll’s writing one too, huh.”
Sara nodded. “We have the same editor. But Phylliss is going to have a best-seller—she’s a real writer. Mine’s just a compilation of letters.”
“It must be so exciting! Is Eckankar going to be in it?”
“I’d like it to be but…Phyll and I are kind of at loggerheads about that. I just want it to be universal. I don’t want critics saying there was anything—cultish, or whatever. I’m already thinking about critics!” She laughed, remembering how Phylliss said she wanted their “movie of the weak” to be special.
The Center was filled with kids and tons of Tupperware food. Sara pointed out seven H.I.s—Higher Initiates—those who’d been around ECK some twenty years and more. They were plain folk, down-home and grounded. Ursula talked to a writer who got turned on to ECK by his shrink, and a horse trainer from Rancho Cucamonga who married a non-ECKist. (He was into reincarnation, she said, so they got along just fine.) There was a shy young man with a bright smile—a boy, really—who looked a little ragged. Two of the H.I.s asked how he’d heard of the Center. Once they realized he was possibly homeless, they made sure his plate was full. Ursula was touched.
After a while, everyone sat in chairs and the cabaret began. The horsewoman read a poem about the Mahanta, then a trio sang songs about Light and Sound and Soul. The boy took a seat beside Ursula. A sticker on his shirt said HELLO, MY NAME IS TAJ. His knee touched hers and she moved it away, then moved it back. He smiled a bright, disenfranchised smile.
An H.I. who cheekily called herself “the Living ECK Master of Ceremonies” introduced a sketch called “Motorcycle Man.” A girl around Tiffany’s age slipped into a makeshift bed onstage. As narration began, a bearded, friendly-looking biker roused her. The girl brushed sleep from her eyes and climbed on his back while he revved the high handle of an imaginary Harley. “Now this girl was visited every night by the Motorcycle Man,” said the H.I., “and they cruised the city streets, then up to the sky. He told her many, many things. But every morning her parents wanted to convince her it was just a dream.” The upshot being that when the child grew up, she realized the Motorcycle Man was none other than a Living ECK Master. After the applause and laughter ebbed—the girl was a natural-born ham—the H.I. thanked “the father-daughter comedy duo of Calvin and Hobbes.” Everyone knew that “Calvin and Hobbes” was the Mahanta’s favorite cartoon. The sketch was taken directly from Sri Harold’s parables, she added.
