The Masked Man: A Memoir And Fantasy Of Hollywood

by Tom Wilson

"He rises, though. He gets up off the fence and does a dance, I swear."

  He did rise. He was dressed up in a Superman T-shirt and those rainbow suspenders that Robin Williams ripped off for "Mork and Mindy," but He rose from the dead so I was allowed to go. The Valley Forge Music Fair was presenting the rock opera Godspell, and I was on my way with my earnest, hippie friends from the youth group of the Body of Christ Prayer Community at the Daylesford Abbey, a monastery hidden in the maples and elms of eastern Pennsylvania, full of priests and brothers living their lives according to the rule of Saint Norbert. The youth group was not run according to the rule of Saint Norbert, but according to the rule of how many kids could fit into the back of a VW van and get out to the Valley Forge Music Fair to see "Godspell."

  "The Abbey" was home to a sizzling Pentecostal, charismatic prayer group, based at a Catholic monastery dedicated to an 11th century Saint, so beneath a statue's marble gaze and in the glow of flickering candles, old ladies prayed rosaries in the traditional way, sighing "Hail Marys" in monotone as hooded monks prayed silently in a darkened side chapel, while a few feet away, knots of denim covered young people whirled, wept, and thrust open hands into the incensed air, begging for God's presence and power. Hot, vibrating masses of anointed humanity, singing, rocking, hugging, laying on hands, shouting in prophetic tongues, and, like their parents and grandparents before them, always followed by coffee cake. My mother owned the "Gifts Of The Spirit" bookshop, a tiny bible store down the tree lined road from the abbey, and was not only a seller of bibles and Christian gifts, she was a Catholic girl, steeped in the old Catechism and the Latin chanted sacraments, and even more, a tongues praying, Pentecostal, "700 Club" watching dynamo of the early seventies. I spent many nights in the back seat of our station wagon on the way to prayer meetings, revivals, gospel concerts and bible studies, praying and lifting my hands to the sky, shouting exuberant, unknown foreign fragments of speech up through the asbestos ceiling and directly into the ear of God.

  My sister called it "chickala-chickala," because that's what it sounded like when Mom prayed in tongues. In the days after she was "baptized in the Holy Spirit," she prayed in tongues for us at home, at the dinner table, or occasionally in the car at a traffic light staying red for too long for a station wagon with five kids in it.

  "Come on, Mom! Do chickala-chickala!" we'd cry.

  "No,' she'd say, afraid of using a prayer in the wrong way, but equally afraid of hiding her light under a bushel.

  "Pleeeeeeeease?" we'd beg.

  She closed her eyes for a moment and begin to give her voice to God, praying in a language known only to the angels, as we echoed her in the back seat, five kids in holy chaos, "chickala chickala chickala…"

  For teenagers in a prayer group, praying in tongues is easy, because regardless of the state of your spiritual ecstasy, you can go into the "Should have bought a Honda" variation, which fits into any kind of tongues praying situation. For kids that didn't feel like they had the gift of tongues but wanted to hop in and feel a part of the group, they could close their eyes tightly, raise their hands and keep repeating "shouldaboughtahonda, shouldaboughtahonda, shouldaboughtahonda, shouldaboughtahonda."

  The youth group ran to their seats just in time to see John the Baptist in the back of the theatre in a tuxedo jacket and rainbow clown pants, standing next to a neon Pepsi sign at the snack bar. He blew a long note through a ram's horn and marched down the aisle past me, squeezing a thick gush of water out of a sponge he carried in his right hand. "Prepare ye the way of the Lord," he sang, and the place exploded. He threw an arc of water through the air, baptizing the front three rows, and electric guitars, cymbals, drums, and singing actors in psychedelic costumes announced the entrance of Jesus, a Jesus made up and dressed as a harlequin innocent, a clown Superman - easily as counter cultural as it's possible to imagine Jesus being portrayed during the Gerald Ford administration.

  I was electrified, stunned in the musical explosions and hippie parables. "You are the light of the world!" John the Baptist screamed at Jesus, followed by hand claps and groovy dancing. "Teach us another easy to understand parable in the language of today's youth, Lord!" CLAP! YEAH! (groove to the right)

  At the intermission, the cast handed out cups of Hi-C, and the youth group was buzzing.

  "Isn't John the Baptist amazing?"

  "Jesus is better, though."

  "Is not. John the Baptist is a better singer."

  "The snack bar is, like, packed, but do you want to get a Pepsi?"

  "What do we do with the Hi-C Mary Magdalene gave us?"

  "Put it under your chair. Come on, maybe we'll see another disciple!"

  I couldn't speak. I stood in place, theatrically mugged and swooning. "This is the coolest thing I have ever seen," I mumbled to someone, sipping Hi-C out of a Dixie cup.

  The house lights blinked on and off and intermission was over, so the kids around me shoved Jujyfruit boxes under their seats and tried to stop giggling as the second act started, leading the people of suburban Philadelphia on the Via Dolorosa, a way of the cross as if watching it through a Woodstock kaleidoscope, a bell bottomed trip to Golgotha that hypnotized the circled audience, stunned in concentric padded chairs, as the circus Christ was tied with colorful ribbons to a chain link fence, looking into the red and blue stage lights, his eyes filled with hurt, surprise and growing fear, singing "Oh God…I'm bleeding."

  The silence was a form of theatrical silence that I'd never experienced before on the floor of my bedroom, reading liner notes from an album cover. The actor Jesus writhed in agony, the disciples danced in undulating sorrow, and in the middle of it all, a child several rows behind me began to wail inconsolably for his Jesus, and for Jerusalem, and for the sin of the world, as my heart pounded in my chest and I thought "Whatever it takes, whatever I have to do, I am going to learn how to do it, I'm going to become an actor, and I'm going to play Jesus in Godspell."

  Jesus rose from the dead at the end of course, just like we told our parents, and he danced down the aisles, singing "Long live God!" and "Prepare ye the way of the Lord" again, and I clapped my palms scarlet and throbbing. We wrestled our way through the crowds toward the stage door to get a peek at the company of actors, eventually laying our eyes on Jesus himself, the actor Victor Garber, who was greeting some friends, and accepting the tearful congratulations of people moved beyond words. A few of us rushed over and almost knocked him over with teen passion.

  "WE'RE THE YOUTH GROUP FROM THE BODY OF CHRIST PRAYER GROUP FROM THE DAYLESFORD ABBEY AND YOU ARE AMAZING! AH-MAZING!!"

  "Thank you," he said, waving to another visitor as we surrounded him.

  "Ask him, Carol!"

  "I'm not gonna ask him, you ask him!"

  "I bought the candy! You ask him!"

  "Uhm…we were just wondering…uh…are you a Christian?"

  The seven thousandth time he was answering the question seemed easy to him, because he replied with a gracious, humble smile and said "I'm Jewish."

  Shocked into a new kind of silence, we staggered away from him and headed back to the group, whispering to each other.

  "What's the deal with that? Jesus isn't even a Christian?"

  "Unbelievable."

  "But you know what? Jesus was Jewish!" a girl said from the crowd.

  We had to admit she was right. Jesus was great in the show, and in real life He was actually Jewish, so that's excellent casting.

  We got to our cars and hugged, linked arms, and prayed. Old couples in Lincoln Continentals rolled past us on their way to an after show ice cream, rolling their eyes at the hippie Jesus freaks. We prayed for them all, and foreign tongues, including many "shouldaboughtahondas" lifted over the street lights as I, before enthralled teenagers in religious ecstasy, before blue haired old ladies who bought the Music Fair subscription series and were leaving in a snit because Jesus was portrayed as a vaudevillian clown, before George Washington and Mad Anthony Wayne riding ghost steeds of revolution across the
moonlit hills of Valley Forge, and before the living Christ Himself, beating within my chest, I swore that I was going to be an actor, perform the role of Jesus in Godspell, and in a welcome side effect, become very famous and fabulously rich, in order to help the poor and probably buy a Corvette.

  SIX

  I had no idea why I began telling the guy my life's story, because if I was going to tell somebody something really personal it should take a lot longer and probably wouldn't involve sharing my dream of playing Jesus in Godspell. But let me tell you something that's true - When the Lone Ranger asks you a question, this is a guy who's listening. He doesn't mumble "how's it going?" and get uncomfortable if you say anything more than "Fine. You?" By the time I finished talking only because my mouth was dry, the lights were turned off at three of the four gas pump islands, including the ones that were shining enough light across our shoulders for me to make out his eyes under the brim of his hat.

  "That's really something," he said, "Did you ever end up playing Jesus in Godspell?"

  "No, I never have."

  "Hmm," he said, the darkened gas pumps behind him standing like a posse.

  "I still want to, to be honest," I said, rubbing my palms along the painted curb I was sitting on.

  "You're a pretty big hombre. John the Baptist would have to be huge."

  "I guess so."

  "The Roman soldiers would have a hard time arresting you," he said.

  "That's not the reason, though," I said.

  "Why haven't you done it, then?" he asked.

  "Because of Back To The Future," I said.

  "Back to what?"

  "Back To The Future," I said.

  "What is that?" he said.

  I tore some brown grass from a crack in the cement, and stared at him.

  "Are you kidding me?" I said.

  "No. What is that?"

  He stared at me with a sliver of moonlight catching the lower edge of his eyeholes. Silent.

  It was at least three in the morning and I had a plane to catch at nine, which meant my normal hour and a half of fitful sleep before flying home. "Well," I said, standing up and rubbing knots out of my behind, "I have to catch a plane, so I'd better go."

  "Fair enough," he said. He didn't seem to be in a hurry to say anything in particular. He stood up slowly, looking into the glaring lights of the gas station mini market. "Are you hungry?" he asked.

  "No."

  "Oh," he said, smiling to hide his disappointment.

  "Why? Are you hungry?" I asked, "I mean…you get hungry?"

  "Sure I do …but, the thing is, Tom, I drank water at the nightclub there because those drinks cost an arm and a leg."

  "I told them that you were my guest," I said, "They shouldn't have—"

  "I know," he said, looking down at his boots and kicking some gravel into a tiny pile, "The thing is I don't have any money. Couldn't even tip the young lady, though I did leave her a silver bullet."

  I needed to go back to the hotel, and every second robbed me of moments I could be staring at the hotel room ceiling trying to sleep, and he wasn't offering one bit of wisdom to have his arrival in my life make one bit of sense, and he needed to borrow money.

  "So, you're hungry?" I asked.

  "I could eat something, friend," he said.

  "It's Tom."

  "Yes, Tom. Sorry," he said, nodding and sturdy.

  "Clayton. You're hungry?"

  He kicked the carefully assembled quarry at his feet across the dark concrete. "Starved, but like I said, I don't—"

  "You don't have any money," I said along with him.

  I stared at him, not a miserly stare, just your basic confused squint.

  "You don't travel with any money?"

  He didn't answer, I don't know if there even was an answer. He didn't look down as if he were embarrassed by my ignorance and just couldn't tell me, he didn't smile with a sly look like he had some eternal truth that I might find out if only I kept hanging out with him and buy him food at gas stations. He just didn't answer.

  "They've got some hot dogs in there," I said, "But don't even think about walking in there at three in the morning with a couple of guns."

  He stared at me silently for a moment.

  "Seriously. Give me the guns."

  "I've never used them in the cause of anything but peace in my life."

  "I don't care," I said, "I understand the whole Ranger thing, but it doesn't fly right now. There's probably a kid in there who'll shoot you with a Taser the second you go through the door with a mask and two guns."

  "That's a sad state of affairs, friend," he said, adding "Tom" after I stared at him for a few seconds.

  "Well, that's the way things are now, Lone Ranger" I said.

  "I'm not the Lone Ranger," he said, hands on his belt.

  "I know that!" I said, massaging my temples, "You're not the Lone Ranger because they sued you or something, I get it. It was a joke. You know, like when you keep calling me "friend?"

  "Oh, alright then," he said.

  We stared at each other silently for another second because I'd forgotten he was waiting for me to give him money and take him to the hot dog grill.

  I rummaged in my pockets for cash. "You know, you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble, kemo-sabe."

  "How's that?" he asked.

  "Drop the "L." One letter. Take it out."

  "What do you mean, friend - er - Tom?"

  "Take out the L and you're not the Lone Ranger anymore. You're the One Ranger. Try suing the One Ranger, Hollywood! He's the One Ranger!"

  It was a profound revelation to him, because when I finally found some hot dog money and handed it to him, I had to press it into his gloved hand before he curled his fingers around it.

  "Let's go," I said, leading the way across the greasy cement.

  "Hot dog!" he said.

  "That's right, kemo-sabe."

  "Do you know what kemo-sabe means, Tom?"

  "I don't care," I said, handing him a five dollar bill.

  "You don't want anything?" he asked.

  I took the five back and handed him a ten. "Here, these places are a joke. Get me a cupcake and some chocolate milk or something."

  "Okay."

  "And give me the guns."

  "What?"

  "You want a hot dog? GIMMETHEGUNS!"

  I hid the pistols in my shoulder bag. "Take off the mask," I said.

  He put up a hand defensively. "The mask stays on, friend."

  "We're going into a store!"

  "The mask stays on."

  "You're not even the Lone Ranger!"

  "The mask stays on. Case closed. Hot dog or not."

  We headed into the store, a cowboy in a mask and a comedian with a bag full of guns.

  The gas station attendant, born and raised many thousands of miles away from the American West, didn't look away from his small T.V. when we came in, until the Ranger walked toward the bulletproof glass next to the rolling silver rods cradling two remaining hot dogs, glistening dark orange.

  "May I have one of these hot dogs, friend?" he asked the man in the booth.

  The guy woke up long enough to give a confused nod, mumble something in the language of his youth and fall off his chair onto the floor.

  When he wrestled himself away from the spinning legs of the rolling chair and peeked over the lip of the bulletproof counter, the Ranger was still standing in front of him, thumbs hitched into his empty gunbelt.

  "May I have one of your hot dogs, please?"

  The man didn't rise higher than chin level, and didn't say a thing, staring at him and rubbing the bright green mini-mart smock with trembling hands.

  The Ranger gestured to his empty holsters. "If the question is whether or not I'm armed, as you can see, amigo, I'm unarmed. May I have a hot dog?"

  "Yes," the man managed, pointing at the grill.

  "It's self serve," I said, "Just make one yourself and pay him."

  "Fair enough," the Ranger
said, pulling a bun out of a cellophane bag and grabbing grease crusted tongs used to pull the antique tube steaks off the grill.

  I paid for his food, gulping chocolate milk as he ripped open a few dozen packets of mustard and relish. He took a bite out of the thing, making half of it vanish in an instant, smiling as he chewed, a dollop of mustard left on his lips.

  "You got some on your lip there," I said, pointing at his face as he licked it clean.

  "How's that?" he said, licking, "Gone?"

  "Yeah, that's good," I said, walking toward the door. My hands full of milk and candy, I turned my back to the front door and bumped it open, with the Ranger behind me.

  "Mustard is really something, isn't it?" he said, "So much flavor."

  "Uh, yeah, I guess."

  "And so yellow! Look at that color!" he said, waving the remaining tube steak in front of me.

  "You ever get mustard stains on that shirt?" I asked.

  "Never."

  It was only then that the attendant could form any real words, standing in his plexiglass booth.

  "You are from a party? Yes? Party?"

  "No, we're not, friend." the Ranger said.

  "Well, excuse me, but what are you supposed to be?" he said.

  The Ranger finished the last bite of hot dog and carefully wiped crumbs from his gloves, bringing his right hand to the brim of his hat, grasping it with his index finger and thumb.

  "I'm happy to have made your acquaintance. Thank you for the hot dog," he said, turning and following me out the door.

  He patted his belly as we walked beneath the glare toward the rear of the station. "Thank you for that. That hot dog was amazing."

  "When was the last time you had a hot dog?" I asked.

  "Oh, not too long ago."

  I stopped walking behind him, casting a tall shadow on the oil spattered walls of the building.

  "There are hot dogs there? Where you're from?" I stammered.

  He turned to me, smiling big. "Hot dogs are everywhere!" He laughed.

  "Ah, so they have hot dogs, you know, where you're from, but apparently they don't have any money."

  He turned the corner of the building, chuckling. "Good one."