-No. I just think it"s a great piece of popular melodrama, but not a great piece of art.
He turned on his stool, faced me.
-Who the h.e.l.l? Where do you get off? This is one of the.
He backhanded the air.
-Why do I bother? You might as well have spent your childhood watching TV. Should have just wheeled one into your bedroom and plugged it into your eyes and let it brainwash you like the rest of society. You could be a bartender instead of a teacher. You could have a nice comfortable job pouring drinks and mopping vomit and watching TV. Wasted time. Wasted effort.
He picked up his shot gla.s.s and drained it.
-Wasted life.
I stared at the beer in my gla.s.s.
He knocked the base of the shot gla.s.s on the bar and the bartender came down with a bottle of Bushmills in his hand.
He topped off the old man"s shot gla.s.s.
-L.L., how "bout you take it easy on my customers. You buy the guy a drink, doesn"t mean you have the right to browbeat him.
I raised a hand.
-It"s cool, he"s my dad.
L.L. wrote a novel.
It"s on that shelf with the Nelson Algren and Bukowski and Kerouac at your local independent bookstore. If you have one of those. If not, you can find it on the Internet. But it will probably be the printing they did for the movie.
He wrote his novel before he met my mom. Really, he met my mom because he wrote the novel. It was a cult thing. Dozens of printings over the years, each of them a run of a couple thousand, well regarded enough to get him several guest lecture gigs in the late sixties as a not quite elder statesman of the counterculture. If not for that, he"d never have been at UC Berkeley in "68. Never gone to the Fillmore with some of his grad students to see a happening, and loudly denigrate it as bulls.h.i.t, sounding off at the back of the hall, a bottle of mescal in one hand and a huge joint in the other, surrounded by the more reactionary wing of the peace and freedom movement. If not for that, he"d never been challenged by an attractive young undergrad from SF State, who proposed to show him how rock music, acid and free love could change the world. Never would have eye-droppered a dose of U.S. government pure LSD and ended up f.u.c.king the undergrad"s brains out in Golden Gate Park at dawn, receiving along the way what he once described to me as, The most sublime head known to man or Jesus. I saw the universe entire in that b.l.o.w. .j.o.b, Web, the whole d.a.m.n shooting match. The most sublime head known to man or Jesus. I saw the universe entire in that b.l.o.w. .j.o.b, Web, the whole d.a.m.n shooting match. Never would have taken the undergrad to wife that week. Never would have brought her back to Los Angeles with him. And certainly never would have gotten stone f.u.c.ked up with her twelve years later, on one of the rare occasions they had s.e.x anymore, and forgotten to make sure she had in her diaphragm and impregnated her with a child she would refuse to abort, all of it ending with me as his son. Or that"s how he tells the story. Never would have taken the undergrad to wife that week. Never would have brought her back to Los Angeles with him. And certainly never would have gotten stone f.u.c.ked up with her twelve years later, on one of the rare occasions they had s.e.x anymore, and forgotten to make sure she had in her diaphragm and impregnated her with a child she would refuse to abort, all of it ending with me as his son. Or that"s how he tells the story.
The old man rubbed a hand over his round belly.
-Would you have preferred that? If I"d just plopped you in front of the b.o.o.b tube for your education? It could have prepared you for a menial life, it would have been no trouble at all. It would have been much easier than teaching you how to read when you were two. It would have been much easier than showing you the constellations or taking you to the Getty to see Rembrandts or the Hollywood Bowl to see Bernstein. It would have been much easier than giving you an education that you were able to use, something to share with your students. There"s no n.o.bler profession, no better use of a life than to teach, but I could have saved us both the trouble and given you a TV and that would have made you happy, it seems.
I looked at the old man.
-I"m not teaching anymore.
He blinked.
-Oh, and what kind of job have you turned your energies to?
-I"m. Cleaning stuff.
He picked at the tuft of gray hair sprouting from his right ear.
-A janitor.
-No.
-You"re cleaning for a living?
-Well, for the last couple days.
-Then you are, my son, either a janitor or a housekeeper. Are you a housekeeper?
-No.
He swiveled on his stool and signaled the bartender.
-Do you have, by any chance, an application? My son, I think, might be looking to improve his employment situation.
The bartender blinked.
-We"re not hiring.
My dad shrugged.
-Alas. Another beer then. He can use it to drown his useless dreams and sorrows.
I drained my gla.s.s and set it down.
-Thanks, Dad. But I think you"re mistaking me for you.
He grinned, showing me the gap where his two upper front teeth used to be before he lost them in an Ensenada bar fight.
-Ah, now there"s the little son of a b.i.t.c.h I raised.
Lincoln Lake Crows loves teachers and teaching. In theory. Which is to say he loves the idea of teachers and of teaching.
The n.o.blest Profession, Web. No greater calling than the pa.s.sing of knowledge from one generation to the next. A thankless task it is, to the outsider. The teacher, the true teacher, knows that the rewards of his calling are not properly measured in silver. They are measured in the achievements of the teacher"s students. Respect, yes. Admiration, yes. A word of thanks, yes. All these are well deserved and appreciated. But the true and absolute payment comes in seeing a student learn and apply that learning. No matter how modest their accomplishments may be, that is the reward. That is coin of the realm for a true teacher.
And he should know. Old L.L. put his years in as a high school teacher. Toiling in the mines of public education for well over a decade.
He"d still be there now.
Except that he wrote a novel. And he lived in Los Angeles. And someone he knew knew someone who knew someone who pa.s.sed the novel around to someone. And that someone turned out to be Dennis Hopper. And he showed it to Bob Rafelson. And Bob Bob, as he was known around our house, took out an option.
And L.L."s opinions about remuneration changed very rapidly thereafter.
At least that"s how my mom tells the story.
-And what brings the fruit of my loins to the western precipice of this, our waning civilization?
I forked up the last of the sand dabs he"d ordered for me and wiped my mouth.
-Nothing.
I put the fork down and pushed the plate away. Dad hadn"t bothered to eat, food inhibiting, as it does, the absorption of alcohol.
He flicked his eyes across a page of the book he had reopened while I ate.
-Nothing. Certainly. Why should a janitor be anything but aimless? The freedoms of the laboring cla.s.s. Why fill the off hours with knowledge and investigation, with self-improvement? To what end, after all? Certainly. Why should a janitor be anything but aimless? The freedoms of the laboring cla.s.s. Why fill the off hours with knowledge and investigation, with self-improvement? To what end, after all? Nothing. Nothing. Indeed. Indeed.
I leaned over on my stool and took a toothpick from the dispenser on the shelf next to the menus. The waiters were coming on for dinner service, I watched one use an ice cream scoop on a tub of refrigerated b.u.t.ter, plopping the perfect little b.a.l.l.s into white dishes. Another slid trays of dinner salads into the stand-fridge. The manager chalked specials on a board. A couple regulars came in and the bartender started making their drinks without being asked.
I looked at L.L. reading Anna Karenina. Anna Karenina. I thought about Anna throwing herself under her train. I thought about the shower of blood and brain on the bedroom wall of the house in Malibu. I thought about the putrid stain the pack rat left on the floor in Koreatown. I thought about Anna throwing herself under her train. I thought about the shower of blood and brain on the bedroom wall of the house in Malibu. I thought about the putrid stain the pack rat left on the floor in Koreatown.
I picked my teeth.
-Guess I was just thinking about you, L.L. Thought I"d come by and see how you"re doing.
He glanced at me, eyes peering just over the top of his gla.s.ses. He signaled the bartender and looked back down at his book.
-A banner day. Another beer is surely in order.
L.L. wrote the screenplay, and it was a hit.
It was read by everyone in Hollywood. Dad became the hottest writer in town. Coppola tapped him to adapt Travels with Charley. Travels with Charley. Redford wanted to know if he"d brush up a remake of Redford wanted to know if he"d brush up a remake of The Heart of the Matter. The Heart of the Matter. Michael Cimino was looking to do the life of Jim Thomson. Robert Evans thought he"d snagged the Holy Grail, the rights to Michael Cimino was looking to do the life of Jim Thomson. Robert Evans thought he"d snagged the Holy Grail, the rights to The Catcher in the Rye. The Catcher in the Rye. Did L.L. want first crack? Anything and everything with a whiff of the literary, L.L. Crows was at the top of the list to write, adapt, brush up, or take a pa.s.s at. Did L.L. want first crack? Anything and everything with a whiff of the literary, L.L. Crows was at the top of the list to write, adapt, brush up, or take a pa.s.s at.
And he took every job. And he wrote some of the most consistently excellent and praised screenplays Hollywood has ever seen. And not a f.u.c.king one was ever produced. Nothing that he got screen credit for, anyway. But in the "70s, and through most of the "80s, his red pencil marks had decorated, and vastly improved, he"d be sure to inform you, the pages of a small forest"s worth of scripts. Some good, some pure a.s.s. Several Oscar nominees, and a few winners. Not that he gave a f.u.c.k one way or another. Because they weren"t his stories. He was just the hired gun, getting richer than any human could pray to a fat and greedy Jesus to get.
His story, his admired and lauded screenplay of his one and only novel, walked up and down the runway and had its skirt lifted by every A-list studio/actor/director/producer in town with a yen to take on the what had become the greatest movie never made the greatest movie never made, and while it had more than a few dollar bills stuffed in its panties, no big spender ever stepped up to throw down for a trip to the champagne lounge.
A source, one might say of some slight bitterness in years to come.
-And what are you reading these days?
I looked up from the copy of Down and Out in Paris and London Down and Out in Paris and London that I"d taken from his pile. I"d scooted over to the stool next to L.L. to make room for a couple that was waiting for a table. Full dinner service in swing, Chez Jay went from elbow room empty to sardine can packed in less than an hour. I"d forgotten. that I"d taken from his pile. I"d scooted over to the stool next to L.L. to make room for a couple that was waiting for a table. Full dinner service in swing, Chez Jay went from elbow room empty to sardine can packed in less than an hour. I"d forgotten.
Sitting at his side, reading silently, sipping at a beer, it came back.
Childhood revisited.
I closed the book.
-Horror mostly.
He rubbed his forehead, kept his eyes in his own book.
-Dare I ask by whom written?
-Whatever. Stephen King, Joe Lansdale, Clive Barker.
He winced.
-Web. Ambrose Bierce, Lovecraft, Stoker, for G.o.d sake.
I went on.
-Dean Koontz, Kellerman.
-Edgar Allan Poe, ever heard of him? J. S. LeFanu? Algernon Blackwood?
-James Herbert. Straub.
He slammed his book closed.
-Are you trying to kill me? Did you come here solely to antagonize me and rub my face in your ignorance? Certain tales by Mark Twain, Charles d.i.c.kens, Edith Wharton for f.u.c.k sake, all horror of the highest order. Dear G.o.d, Webster, Henry James! Shirley Jackson! Or in later years, Harlan Ellison, Bradbury, Matheson!
I slammed my own book.
-I"m not looking for f.u.c.king enlightenment, I"m looking to turn my f.u.c.king brain off for a couple hours!
He rose from his stool.
-Turn your brain off? Turn your? Turn your?
He began collecting his books.
-Well, I have news for you, Web.
He cradled the books and put his face in mine.
-You have f.u.c.king well succeeded at that!
Heads had turned, the manager was coming over.
L.L. took a thick roll of bills from the hip pocket of his faded and baggy madras shorts and flipped a couple hundreds on the bar.
-Sorry about the fracas, Ernesto. My son is a mongoloid, and if I don"t speak at a certain volume and pitch he can"t understand human speech.
Exit, L. L. Crows, having added to his great legacy of closing lines.
I never heard about how great teaching was when I was a little kid. By then, the mid-eighties, he was one of the senior script doctors of the industry, a go-to guy when a little cla.s.s was needed on a project, making an obscene living tweaking other writers" illiteracies. All I heard about was how vital the movies were.
People say escapism as if it were some foul bane. As if the denizens of this weary world were not deserving of some surcease and ease. They say it as if that is the only virtue the cinema might possess. As if it is not the great art form of the twentieth century. As if G.o.dard and Fellini and Hitchc.o.c.k and Ca.s.savetes and Bergman and Altman and Wilder never walked the earth. One movie, one, of only moderate success, it touches more lives than I touched in nearly fifteen years of teaching. The years I toiled in that cesspool of incompetence and mediocrity called the public schools. I shudder, Web. My bowels turn to water when I think of what I might have accomplished. But no regrets, regrets are for small men with minor minds. We, my boy, we are for scaling mountains, you and I. We are for leaving monuments. A movie, a film, it is a testament in light and color and sound, a record of achievement, a projection of artistic vision penetrating directly into the brains of the audience. They cannot help but be touched, changed, when our words vibrate their eardrums, when the photons carrying our images strike the rods and cones of their eyes. Filmmaking, Web, let no one tell you otherwise, is a n.o.ble endeavor, the surest way for giant men to leave their marks upon the landscape of human emotions.
Delivered as he drove me around greater Los Angeles in his 560SL, after keeping me home from school so we could go to the NuArt together to see a Michael Curtiz revival, pointing from time to time with the hand that didn"t contain a can of beer.
There, at Wilshire and Crenshaw, the house that served as exterior for Nora Desmond"s mansion. There, the rest home Jack and Faye go to in Chinatown. Chinatown. There, the Ennis Brown House, Price"s There, the Ennis Brown House, Price"s House on Haunted Hill. House on Haunted Hill. The Amba.s.sador Hotel, where Anne Bancroft and Hoffman have their affair. Your mom and I f.u.c.ked there once. Here in San Pedro, right there, they filmed the Skull Island landing in The Amba.s.sador Hotel, where Anne Bancroft and Hoffman have their affair. Your mom and I f.u.c.ked there once. Here in San Pedro, right there, they filmed the Skull Island landing in King Kong. King Kong. This spot here, Hollywood and Sunset, where Griffith built his Babylonian temple and staged the single largest orgy of all time. This spot here, Hollywood and Sunset, where Griffith built his Babylonian temple and staged the single largest orgy of all time.
Mom was spending most of her time in Big Sur by then, hanging with the Esalen crowd. Yoga and transcendental meditation and organic hummus and mud baths and, I a.s.sume, f.u.c.king men considerably younger and less caustic than her older and no longer looked-up-to husband.
So she wasn"t around when L.L. got the call that his screenplay had finally been green-lighted. She missed the scene when his ghostwriter pals drove up the canyon to drink their way through the case of Krug he opened for the occasion. She missed the following morning when he got the final draft of the script from his agent and found that it had been rewritten five times in the year since it had been most recently optioned; thick batches of colored pages mixed into the script, indicating the many hands that had revised his work. She missed the evisceration he performed on the house after reading the rewrites, while I sat out front on my Big Wheel, and Chev and I listened to him creating a whole new lexicon of cursing. And by the time the movie was made two years year later, with Judd Nelson and Molly Ringwald in the leads, directed by John Badham, she had relinquished claims on communal property and left for Oregon to find her true self, unenc.u.mbered by the artificial constraints of marriage and rigidity of bourgeois child-rearing concepts. true self, unenc.u.mbered by the artificial constraints of marriage and rigidity of bourgeois child-rearing concepts. That final exit relieving her of the scene after L.L. went, hope springs eternal, to the premiere. That final exit relieving her of the scene after L.L. went, hope springs eternal, to the premiere.
He sat through it. All one hundred and seventy-nine minutes of it. Sat through every tired cough and forced laugh from the audience, sat through the round of relieved applause as the credits rolled. Sat through the entirety of its mediocrity, and saw it as a movie guilty of the ultimate crime: forgettability It wasn"t even bad enough to be remembered for the incompetence brought to bear. Nor, after all the years and near-misses gone by, were the expectations, or the budget, high enough for it to be held out as a great flop. He sat in the theater, enduring the shoulder pats and congratulations of various sucker fish of the movie business. And I sat in the seat next to him the whole while.