The Masked Man: A Memoir And Fantasy Of Hollywood

by Tom Wilson

  "Why did you run?" I whispered.

  "I didn't want to put you in a difficult situation," he said.

  "What do you mean difficult?" I said, "How is this not a difficult situation?"

  "They would have had lots of questions that I don't care to answer, and answers that would have both of us in trouble."

  "Not you," I said, "You could hop on the horse and disappear."

  "I wouldn't leave you like that," he said, "In trouble with the authorities. Trouble that neither of us deserve."

  He led the horse across the street to ride in the shadows, beyond the spill of spotlights in a parking lot.

  "We didn't want his money," he said, "just a moment of his time."

  "No, just you wanted a moment of his time."

  "Yes, that I did."

  "But how are we not in trouble?"

  "I think we lost them."

  "What about my car?"

  "They don't know that it's your car. It's parked up the street near some other cars, and we didn't even get onto the property. That's not breaking and entering, it's barely trespassing. They'll lose interest."

  The faint chop of helicopter blades was getting louder, and a few blocks away an L.A.P.D. chopper shone a brilliant beam onto a stand of palms.

  "Well, that's a fine howd'ya do. Looks like they've got the whole kit and caboodle after us," he chuckled, "As they say out on the reservation, that Spielberg is big medicine."

  "What are we supposed to do about it?" I asked.

  "Hold on," he said, "Never had to deal with whirly-birds in the old west!" "You didn't live in the old west."

  "Uh, I meant there weren't helicopters in…" the sentence just died out at the end of his breath, and he squinted toward an intersection through the holes in his mask, "Let's move. Hyah!!"

  I hung onto his belt as Twister gave a breathy grunt and we seemed fifty yards away in an instant, both of us crouched low in the saddle, the Ranger's head concentrated and still atop the muscled horse beneath him.

  We rode east and further east, away from Beverly Hills and the police cars flashing red lights across McMansions and security gates, past coffee shops and pizza places, as he nudged Twister in a subtle dance of trot, spin, or flat out fly, depending on where we were, where we needed to go, and who might be chasing us.

  The distant sirens dwindled to silence as we galloped past the Troubador Club on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, the progressive enclave where a cowboy on a horse with a male passenger hanging onto his belt invited finger snaps in the air and gleeful squealing rather than calling the cops.

  "Whoo!" a man in very tight shorts said, waving, "Howdy, partner!"

  "I think we lost them," I said.

  "I believe you're right," he said, "I hope nobody was injured."

  "Of course nobody was injured. My butt is killing me, though."

  "Saddle sore, huh?" he said.

  I put my hands on his shoulders and shifted my weight.

  "Can we stop now?" I said,

  "You want to stop here?"

  "Hey, masked man!" the man in shorts said.

  "Okay, go a few more blocks and we'll stop."

  We rode through Hollywood and the streets of Los Angeles, quiet and dark with only splashes of red, yellow and green traffic lights reflecting on the silver bullets in the belt I was holding onto, unsure where we were headed.

  "Are we going back to my place? Because this isn't the right way."

  I stared at the back of his hat for a response, but we kept riding, hooves pounding through neighborhoods I'd only seen before in windshield glances and peeks between cement embankments bordering the freeways. City blocks of stucco apartment buildings with wounded Chevy Impalas propped on cinder blocks on front lawns worn to crusty brown. The mini-malls cut into every intersection, but coffee shops and pizza places were replaced by Mexican grocery stores with check cashing and payday loans.

  "I think we lost them, maybe we should stop," I said again and again, every mile or so, always answered with a grunt of recognition, a shift in the saddle, and a continuing clip-clop of hooves, walking deep into East L.A.

  "What a place," the Ranger said.

  "I know," I said, "You think there's enough graffiti, or what?"

  "It's beautiful. So beautiful."

  "You're kidding. The graffiti here?"

  "No. The people," he said, "These are beautiful people."

  Far from the hillside under the Hollywood sign, far past the shadow of any soundstage on any studio lot, we rode through a Hispanic village untouched by any limousine, home to burrito stands and ramshackle markets decorated with bold paintings of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the dirty cement walls. The sky was turning pink as street lights began to click off at dawn, leaving gas station signs to illuminate the pre-dawn indigo. The Ranger walked Twister onto a small, grassy hump between parking lot entrances, and the tempo of metallic hoof beats dwindled to muffled thuds as the horse stopped, shaking his head and blowing a long, tired snort out of his nostrils.

  "Why don't we get off here?" the Ranger said.

  I wiped my nose on my sleeve, looking around. "At a gas station?"

  "Let's get down for a while."

  "Are you taking me back to my place, because--"

  "You'll get back to your place," he said.

  "My car is still over there at his house. Are they going to tow my car?" I asked, still white-knuckling the back of the saddle, unable to unlock my vise grip. "Come on, let's take a rest," he said, motioning me off.

  I drew my left leg backward before really considering how to dismount a horse from behind the saddle, catching my knee on the raised cantle to slide sideways for a few inches before losing my grip, turning the wrong way and falling to the ground, hitting my ribs on the curb. "OOfff" grunted out as I fell into the gas station driveway, rolling away from the thumping hooves dancing near my head as Twister avoided trampling me.

  "Are you alright?" the Ranger asked.

  "Hey man, are you okay?" another voice called. A Hispanic kid in his teens was walking back to a truck parked at the pumps. He put a freshly bought can of soda on top of a lawn mower in the truck bed and jogged over to us.

  "I'm okay. No problem," I said, pulling myself to sit on the asphalt.

  The jog over to me slowed to a walk as the kid eyed the Ranger and his horse with disbelief, then a smile and head shake as he put a plastic wrapped breakfast burrito in his teeth and pulled me to my feet, while the Ranger dismounted to help brush me off. "I fell just a little bit. No problem."

  "You slammed, bro!"

  "I was in control of it. Just…" I stopped talking to feel my ribs.

  "Okay, bro, but I saw it, man. You fell hard," the kid said in the lilting dialect of East L.A., born in the U.S.A. but peppered with Spanglish.

  "You sure you're okay, ese?" he asked.

  "Yeah, I'm fine, thank you," I said, extending my hand to shake his for a few seconds until I realized that he didn't see it. He was staring at the Ranger and Twister.

  "What are you, man?"

  "I'm a friend, amigo," the Ranger said, grasping the front of his hat in a subtle bow.

  "Amigo?" the kid chuckled, "That's good. Why you dressed up, man?"

  "I'm the One Ranger."

  The kid didn't flinch. He didn't show any sign of recognition at all.

  "What does that mean?" he asked, "You famous or something?"

  "I don't know," the Ranger said, "I guess I'm only famous if you know me."

  "I don't."

  "Alright, then. I guess I'm not famous. But I'm still the One Ranger."

  "Whatever you say, homes."

  An older man in coveralls finished gassing up the truck and screwed the cap on, calling out something in Spanish that sounded like the boy should go. Then he focused on the Ranger and Twister and stood still.

  "El Llanero Solitario," he said.

  "Senor," the Ranger said, "Yo estoy El Uno Llanero."

  "Que?" the man said, and the R
anger shrugged and said something else in Spanish that made the man smile and nod.

  The early risers sitting at the bus stop behind us peered around the plexiglass hut, pointing at us and mumbling to each other.

  "He is the One Ranger!" the boy called out, proud to be the official announcer. He ran to the street. "Lucho!" he yelled across the street to a group of boys with backpacks headed to school, "Come here, Lucho, it's the One Ranger!"

  People at the bus stop opened their cell phones to point at him and click.

  "It's the what?" the younger boy called over.

  "The One Ranger! I don't know, but come over and get your picture!"

  Lucho crossed the street as the dusty blue street turned brighter grey in the dawn. The Ranger shook hands with the boy's father as he wandered over from the gas pumps, and tousled Lucho's hair when he dropped his backpack and ran over to us.

  "Buenos dias!" the Ranger said.

  "How's it going?" said Lucho, patting Twister on the nose and pointing at his brother. "I'm Luis. That's Paco."

  "It's going very well, my friends."

  "Hey," the older boy said, staring at me with tumblers spinning in his head, "You…"

  I tried to avoid Paco by walking around Twister's head, hiding my face in his mane for a while.

  "Hey, you look like that dude…what's his name?"

  "Who is he?" Lucho asked.

  "That dude! He looks like that dude, what is his name in the future one?"

  "Yes!" the Ranger said, as I tried to wave him silent, "Yes!"

  "Beef!" Paco screamed, pressing his baseball cap into his scalp and calling out to the crowd at the bus stop. "It's Beef! That dude from Back In The Future!"

  "Who?" Lucho said.

  "The butthead guy!"

  The truth dawned on Lucho like the rising sun, and he pointed at me.

  "Yeah! Are you butthead?!"

  "No," I said, "My name is Tom."

  "But you're that dude, right? You are!"

  "I'm…" I looked at the Ranger and he was smiling.

  "Hey!" Lucho said, "He's right! Butthead!"

  "I saw him! I saw him first!" Paco said, spinning in place with his new found power - the finder of the famous, the discoverer of those bathed in magical waters. Human, yes, but projected people whose faces have met with powerful spotlights, projected to a world hungry for laughter and forgetting, televised people whose faces blast across the cosmos in rainbow pixels on glowing screens in houses around the world, recognizable people whose faces have been printed, watched, marveled at and memorized, made special and set apart only because they've been seen by more people than the ones who watch them.

  "I seen him!" Paco shouted again, and he preened and danced in his orange T-shirt, as Lucho made a fuss of dusting off his shoulders to recognize the achievement. The bus stop crowd wandered across the driveway and surrounded us, along with a truck full of construction workers getting coffee, a kid on a skateboard, and two people on early morning bike rides, hand braking to see what the commotion was all about. As every new member of the party approached, Paco called out "Check out who this is!" and Lucho filled in the blanks, listing credits and pointing out Paco as the pop explorer who made the original discovery.

  The Ranger laughed and shook hands and smiled, and I stood near the horse, nursing bruised ribs and trapped in another nightmare.

  "Well, you certainly got us, didn't you?" the Ranger said.

  "Don't we have to go?" I asked him.

  "Why do we have to go?" he said.

  "Because the police are chasing us," I said.

  "We're far from Beverly Hills and nobody is chasing us."

  "Well, I want to go, so come on."

  "Why?"

  "Because I'm sick of it! I'm sick of--"

  "Wait a minute," he said, holding up a gloved hand to stop me from walking away, "Wait just a minute." He leaned toward me to make a hard point. "Tom, it's not about you."

  The crowd began a loose chant of "Beef! Beef! Beef!"

  "It's not about me? Are you insane? What do you mean it's not about me?"

  "It's bigger than you," he said, "And it's bigger than me. It is what it is, and you're you, and no matter how you feel about it it's not going to change it. It's going to be what it is, and you're still you, and it's up to you."

  "What's up to me?"

  "You," he said, "You're up to you. I can't make you do or not do anything. It's up to you."

  "What is up to me?"

  "You."

  "Is this a comedy sketch or something?"

  "It sure is," he chuckled, "It sure as heaven is."

  "It's up to me," I said.

  "You are you," he said, "Not anybody else."

  "Hey butthead!" started popping from various pockets of the crowd, and the scene was a festival of glee in the middle of East L.A. A woman grabbed and turned me, positioning herself next to me as she extended a cell phone at arm's length to take a picture of us. "Gracias, Beef!" she said, giggling and jogging back to the bus stop.

  The crowd surrounding us clapped their hands and sang a song in Spanish that the Ranger knew.

  "What am I supposed to do, Ranger?" I asked.

  He smiled for a photo and turned to me, reaching for my shoulder.

  "You're supposed to love people," he said, "Isn't that beautiful?"

  Paco was ecstatic in the glow of attention, and when the crowd began to block the path of cars pulling into the station for early morning fill-ups, he took the stage for a one man performance of the movie.

  "Hey, McFly!" he said, "Hello? Anybody home?" and laughter pealed in the lavender light.

  "Hey, weren't you in Blood In, Blood Out? I love that movie, man!" someone interrupted.

  "Hey! Hey!" Paco shouted, ready for the grand finale. He crunched his face into an angry grimace and growled, "What are you lookin' at, butthead?!" to a cheer, a happy cheer from the delighted crowd.

  The biggest cheer came from Jack Moore, the One Ranger, taking off his glove to clap even louder and whistle with his fingers.

  "Oh, that was something!" he said.

  "I can do it good!" Paco said.

  The Ranger put his hands on the boy's shoulders and looked him in the eyes.

  "Paco! You are a beautiful boy!" he said.

  And the joy, oh the joy on Paco's sunlit face.

  As the crowd grew into an even bigger curious mob, already searching through the photos they'd taken with their cell phones to show each other, the Ranger walked Twister toward the open work bays of the garage, pulling a hose away from the wall for the thirsty horse, pouring a stream of cool water into his mouth and over his head. I walked over to him and got showered with crystal droplets when Twister shook his head. "Thanks, Twister," I said.

  "He needed a drink, didn't you?" the Ranger said, wiping water from his mane, "Good boy."

  The crowd sharing videos didn't notice the Ranger step toward me, biting the tip of his gloved hand and pulling at the black leather. He raised the hand behind his head and untied his black mask until it fluttered to his side. Jack Moore stared at me without the mask, his blue eyes smiling above a face free of pain, fear, doubt, or worry. He smiled and extended the mask toward me, offering his mask as it danced in the breeze.

  "Take it," he said.

  "Take your mask?"

  "Go ahead," he said.

  "Why?"

  "Enough questions. Take it."

  I took the soft mask into my hand and held it a foot away from me, too powerful a talisman to grasp tightly, or even understand.

  "What do you mean?" I said.

  "You can have it."

  "You want me to have your mask?"

  "Give it a try," he said, "but take it from me, masks don't work."

  I held the mask in front of me, trying to come up with something sharp and funny to say, something ironic and detached, something that a comedian expects himself to say, that he wants to say, that he feels he must say to stay hidden and beyond reach, but I couldn
't. I stood there silently until he gently pushed my hand with the mask toward me again. "Go ahead, take it."

  "Why?" I asked.

  "I don't need it, Tom," he said, "It's more important to you. Trust me, where I'm from, a mask is the last thing you need. Nobody wears one."

  He chuckled and turned off the hose. "I mean, come on, it's a mask."

  "Am I supposed to wear it or something?" I said.

  "It's your mask. Do whatever you want with it."

  "Is this a message?"

  "Looks to me like it's a mask."

  He wrapped Twister's reins around a spigot and walked into the gas station's tiny market as a crowd of eager kids walked up to me, petting the horse's neck.

  "Is this your horse?" a girl with long black hair asked.

  "No, it isn't," I said.

  "Why do you have a mask?" a boy called out. "I don't have a mask."

  "Yes you do," he said, pointing at the black fabric at my side.

  "Oh that. That's not my mask."

  "Why do you have it?"

  "It's, uh, …I have it, yes, it's mine."

  "Are you a robber?"

  "No, I'm not a robber."

  "Why do you have a mask?"

  "My friend gave it to me!" I said.

  "Is it your birthday?" he said.

  "No, it's not my birthday," I said.

  "Why did he give it to you, Dude?"

  I stared silently over the heads of the crowd toward the street, waiting for him to come out and explain himself better, when something flashed the dawn's light across the busy intersection. The morning sun caught a buckle on the bridle of another horse's head, loping out from behind the auto shop across the street. It was a gorgeous pinto of white, furry blotches and golden brown, with a white mane glowing with peach glimmers in the early sunlight, rounding the corner and riding toward me.