Hughes remembers walking in on an AA meeting, sitting in the back, listening in on all the personal testimonies. The mini skyline of styro foam cups. Then standing in line for a mission lunch only to step free at the door’s threshold. Hours later, entirely unsure how he has arrived there, entering a library by the San Diego Freeway—just another homeless soul, nothing on his person, nothing in his head. Stomach grumbling as he joins his new comrades in their hunt for a little public solace: holing up in a grimy restroom, sleeping in among the racks. The librarians glares, kids glance away. One woman looks right through him, he is sure of it.
Hughes ends up down in the L.A. River—that endless trough of concrete—and falls asleep under an overpass. When he wakes, the wind has tossed a blanket of trash over his bulky body. Someone has abandoned a shopping cart. A trio of crows bandy-leg around the carcass of a small dog. Thinking, If this were what I have left, my only real connection to living reality, then I’ll take it. He will reach into his pocket and hand over whatever he has. He pushes the cart down the concrete runway—a studio on wheels, a walking cane, a four-wheeled companion rolled into one. Good boy.
~~
Waking from a black out to find that he is on a shaded street shrouded in the over-slung branches of exotic trees. A little bivouac of time. Before him, a twin row of supersize bungalows lining the road, half hidden behind tall fences, elaborate sills in view, like gaudy bracelets. Tricked-out cars glistening in the sun. Coming to rest in the mouth of an alley: a photo of the Buddha statue pasted on a wooden board, surrounded by rock posters and fliers and stapled business cards. Someone has used old-fashioned poster glue to roll the image straight onto the random blocks of paper below. The ancient prince sits there with one hand up in a gesture of peace, contentment or greeting (hard to tell, a little of each). The Buddha seems to be floating in a pool of water or surrounded by a gaseous blue cloud—peaceful smile about to slip into a sly smirk. The top of the poster has been cut off above the Buddha’s half-closed eyes. A small, unfurled rose caught in the palm of his compassionate hand. Something about it all rings a bell in Hughes’ chest.
Wake Up!, the prince whispers.
He thinks: Whatever the fuck for?
~~
Some hours later Hughes is planted at the front gates of 20th Century Fox, his father’s old company. He has no idea how he has gotten here or how long he’s been standing in place. Just that, dumb tourist, he is staring up at the sign. Behind it, a glimpse of some old western set he’s seen a thousand times.
Luckily, the guy at the gatekeeper’s box doesn’t recognize him. He shooes him off, sneering “Good day, Mr. Rockefeller.”
Hughes winds up waiting for a bus that will never come. Freed from limbo only when an old station wagon pulls up, its driver motioning for him to climb in.
He says: “You ain’t gonna get anywhere that way, Jack.”
The passenger leans back and nods his head in sad agreement.
Hughes rides in the backseat, listening to the men talk about their lives, to radio ads, the sped-up DJ stutter-speech. Streetlights and billboards slipping by. The first thoughts of home rising up in his head then dissipating in road wind. A stiff drink, at least.
The tone of the men shifts. Hughes can feel a new tension.
“Damn, they got cruisers up and down Franklin. Something’s going down.”
“Something’s always going down.”
“That’s the truth.”
The driver glances back in the rearview. “Maybe we need to let you off, mister.”
As soon as he pushes the door closed, the men speed off. He tries to wave after them, but the station wagon has already disappeared into traffic. When Hughes steps onto the sidewalk, he swears he can feel the beginnings of an earthquake rumbling underfoot. Coming back to his senses, he trudges up La Brea toward Sunset, knees crackling like miniature fireworks.
~~
Eventually Hughes ends back up on the Strip. It must be late: the early crowd already dressed up for the clubs. Cars float by awash in hip-hop and honky-tonk. Jeeps with tires as tall as mailboxes. A low, pulsing beat emanates from the Whiskey a Go-Go, shadowy forms dancing within. It’s strange to be back on this boulevard he knows so well, but invisible, a ghostly witness to this surreal, garish parade. All the dusty glitterati meeting for lunch at Old World. Nabbing take-out from Chin Chin. Crashing parties at the Chateau Marmont. Dinners with Andy & co. at Spago’s.
Eventually Hughes ends up outside his favorite bookstore where he once buys a paper alongside Carlo Ponti, Fellini’s famous producer, as he folds his Il Foglio. Another time he overhears a voice as familiar as his father’s, only to turn to face the neurotic in the Bob Newhart Show. Wanting to hug him. He’s even stood next to Sinatra. Old Blue Eyes couldn’t have been more than 5’ 7’’. Surprised by the fact, somehow disappointed.
It must be closing time, for a skinny kid in a fedora starts pulling in the magazine racks, a cigarette dangling on his lip. The kid whistles at a sports car drifting by; a tiny honk floats back. A woman in a torn dress staggers up. At first Hughes thinks she’s a prostitute—nothing new for The Strip, especially at this time of night—but something about her makes him less than sure. Maybe it is the magnitude of the stagger or the look on her face. The woman sees him before her and lurches his way. She appears stricken. That is the word that comes to mind. When she gets closer, he notices the scrapes on her neck and the side of her face. He puts out his arms, thinking She’s been stabbed, as the woman falls into them. They stumble back together, coming to rest against the bookstore’s glass door.
Hughes can see the look of worry and fear worming around in the kid’s face. Another guy’s up at the register, head down, valiantly counting singles. Hughes struggles to lift the woman onto her feet.
“Help me,” she implores angrily.
The guy at the register leans his head out the open window.
He whispers: “Hey Bub, get her out of here.”
The woman gathers regained her balance and smooths her dress down like a lady
“Go fuck yourself,” she spits.
And then she staggers off.
~~
Hughes talks the guy behind the counter at Tower Records into giving him a bathroom key. Does his best to clean up. When he catches sight of his pale face in the mirror, he’s shocked to see his father looking back at him—face drawn, eyes empty, hairline receding. It is a ghost figure staring—a nameless soul, a dead man walking.
He can make out yellow pits lining the folds of skin, slipping under the eyes. Back out on the empty street Hughes takes a few tentative steps and nearly falls over. He is drunk with fatigue. The lights go out behind him with a loud pinball game click. Free play! A police cruiser drifts by. The cop looks over but only sees his whiteness. Or maybe the gigantic poster behind subsumes him and he is soon to disappear.
~~
Hughes takes a step, another, relieved to be back on Sunset Plaza, on that endless winding trek through the starter mansions and the Hollywood Hills faux royalty. Until then, he has only drifted up and down it in his convertible, like all the middle-aged studio executives with money to burn. Never has he seen it up close, at street level. Nor has he noticed the little doorways and paths curling around back; failed to glimpse all the bright blue pools lurking behind the slatted fences or notice the This house is alarmed signs in every window and behind every bush.
Without batting an eye, Hughes walks past first a fleet of old 40s-era Buicks then an immaculate trio of Model-T Fords. He walks back and starts again, slowly this time. The automobiles have been kept in mint condition; all parked along a single curve, as if a wild retro party were being thrown in one of the hidden villas above. It makes perfect Hollywood sense. They aren’t there on his trek down the mountain this morning. He lets his fingers drift along the unwashed paintjobs as he walks, imagining he is dragging a key lengthwise across all that smog-dust and dull glitter.
It’s already dark when an old Mercedes Benz floats by, windows open, a classy lady behind the wheel in a slink. She tokes on an elegantly thin joint, some soft murmur on the radio. She slows and whispers something in Hughes’ direction, maybe offering a ride or the promise of a night of pleasure. He thinks he’s seen her at one of his father’s mansion parties. But he keeps walking and lets the pungent aroma of ganja smoke hang in the air as the starlet’s taillights gradually vanish inside the dark maze above. There is an open window high above in a stucco fortress, the only light on in the sky, a lovely Chopin piece drifting out in the night as Hughes stands under a mammoth flowering bush that smells like a perfume counter. He sways in the dark, mesmerized by the elegant run of notes until the someone playing lifts her hands—first one then other—leaving a single muted fifth to rise up, smoke ring, into the now dark sky.
Hughes remembers how he used to make up mock syllogisms when Ian is still just a boy. How they take turns, working hard to make as little sense as possible. He remembers last playing it with his son on a drive down into the city, heading into their weekly movie at the Realto. This is just before the separation, so Ian is ten. Hughes has been conflating the chicken crossing the road joke in more and more ridiculous ways, which makes Ian laugh happily in the backseat, his hoarse laugh louder the more nonsensical Hughes becomes.
He thinks of this now, as he trudges up the mountain in a robot groove—the houses dark except one McMansion blazing in the night like an ocean liner—and, like minor magic, a syllogism arises in his mind unbidden. He’s just made it to the top of the mountain. There’s a sea of lights below, dark ocean behind; and as Hughes looks out over the city, the words lifted out of his mouth like cigarette smoke:
The city is an ocean of lights.
The ocean is dark and deep.
Therefore, I am alive.
Hughes likes the way the last line gives credit to the surrounding world for keeping him alive. Likes it so much, in fact, that he tries another:
To be alive is to sleepwalk.
I am still alive.
Therefore, I am a sleepwalker.
This one actually makes sense. Too much sense. It sounds like one of Nora’s mantras. She has finally brainwashed him! And so, approaching the darkened house, he takes a final go:
The house is dark.
The ocean houses the deep.
Therefore, I must sleep.
By God, he thinks, stepping into the foyer, finger raised. I’m good.
~~
Back in his house, Hughes pours a deep-end-of-the-swimming-pool drink, desiring more than anything to fall asleep, hard and fast like a stone dropped in a pond. But he knows he won’t. Knows he has to swim around and around inside the tiredness until finally it drags him down into oblivion. He gulps the whiskey and, pouring myself another, wanders into the living room. Turning on a side-table lamp illuminates a giant wall of records. It reminds him of an old Vampire movie the way his shadow scurries up the wall.
Hughes hasn’t played the stereo for a long time; he isn’t even sure it still works. He absent-mindedly thumbs along a shelf of records, eventually settling on a rendition of Bach cello suites, one of those three-album sets with a picture of the soloist on the cover, an ancient, pint-sized cello crouched between his knees. The guy’s shirt collar has a distinctly 70s flair; his hair is a ruffled mess, his wrists cocked, fingers in precise place. He’s a kindred spirit, perfect for the limbo state Hughes has fallen into.
The record fits nicely the turntable and the arm is light in his hand; he lifts it out over the disc, dropping the needle down into the small band of dead air. First the crackle of old vinyl fills the apartment then the warm hum of the cello. Hughes married Susan to that music. They exchanged their vows to it. Hughes reclines on the couch in the dark so as to take in the sacred music, wrapping himself tightly in memories.
The opening suite starts with a slow drag, a reluctant pulse forward: a man alone in a room, a cigarette dangling from his lip as he played. The melody warms up a little, picking up pace…the cellist working his way through an exercise, a run of elegant notes…then the song lifts up, a snake off its coil, moving itself out into the air. A brief pause, as if the musician is surprised he’s conjured this much, made music out of so little. Hughes can picture him in the sound booth, leaning into the microphone, sweat dripping to the floor. He has picked up the melody again, this time with a palpable focus. Again, the pace quickening, jaunty almost—the hand sawing the bow across the fret board in tight flourishes—and the snake rises up into the figure of a woman—her lithe body running up a hill, bolting forward, propelling itself up the slope, a shawl of some kind flying off her body. Then her arms come up and the woman transforms into a bird…no, the test flight of a flying machine…airborne now, legs dangling—up and over hill top, floating there in the air, a flap or two of makeshift wings, a bit of warm wind, then the whole show floats down, lightly bouncing then dropping into the open field in a slow motion stop, crumbling silently into the tall grass.
Hughes slouches in the momentary silence and waits for the next suite to flow over him. And the next. Sitting in the dark allows Hughes to come back into his body, fully, and therefore return to his right mind. Indeed, he feels a strange and altogether new sensation—returning to himself, yes, but also that the Self he has returned to is wholly new, somehow more advanced. Or, at least, the potential is there. Under new management, he speaks out into the dark. Then laughs at his own lame joke.
Hughes imagines scenes in which he and Susan and Ian are still together as a family. They are playing softball in a park. Hughes is pitching to Ian, now a teenager. They are walking out of a movie, crouched around the dining room table playing a board game. And, by some sort of strange magic, Ian becomes Hughes, Susan becomes Hughes’ long-dead mother, and Hughes turns into his father. Everyone is laughing. It is a strange vision, for sure, but somehow it reassures him.
He remains slumped there like that, lost in the dark of the recessed room, thoroughly caught up by these nostalgic images, and by their soundtrack, comforted, letting them work their magic; and for an hour or two, deep into the night, he is free of worry’s oppressive weight, unconcerned—for the first time in a long while—with his own wellbeing. And just before dropping off to sleep, the last line of a syllogism comes to Hughes. Not the first two, just the third. It floats in his mind like a single fluffy cloud. Therefore, I am whole.
~~
Hughes wakes up sprawled out on the couch. He sits up with difficulty, put his head in his hands, and moans. Did I dream a zombie walk around the city? The record lurches around the turntable, needle dulling with every lopsided revolution. It appears so, it appears not. Besides, Hughes is still dressed in smelly running clothes; there are raw scuffs on his elbows and knees. Calf muscles ache. Dried blood runs in a thin, crusted line along his nose. He does the only thing he can do: he lets his palms sink down into the cushions, pushes up, gains his shaky balance, and goes to reset his body in a long, hot shower.
Inside the cone of hot water and steam, Hughes tries to remember exactly what has happened on his trance sojourn. Nothing. Towels off then lays down on the bed but is only able to pull up a few fuzzy memories. He can remember almost falling to his death and waking up in the concrete trough that is the Los Angeles River. Flashes on Sunset, the sweet waft of good reefer. But a voice in his head keeps interrupting. Suze is dead. How can that be? It’s been crowing to him like this ever since the call.
Hughes stands up in that weird elevator shaft way you do when your back aches, and stiff-legged around the room, touching himself back into his things. Puts on some clothes and heads back downstairs. It all seems hyper-real, as if the elements of home life have been tweaked by some computer whiz, airbrushed fresh and clean. Despite everything, Hughes feels more alive than he has in months, years even. Strange how it takes someone you love to wake you up, he thinks, to make you realize that you really did love them, that you were capable of loving at all.
Clean!? That’s it! Janet must have come upstairs and done some sort of massive cleaning and organization project as a gift in his time of need. A small thing for a grief-stricken man. The house is perfectly in place, clutter free, dusted—a true movie-set version of his life. She has even arranged the books by color, artfully creating a color-coded mosaic out of Hughes’ library: blue bleeding into green into read into orange and yellow. It looks magical, even if she’s undone his careful (albeit obsessive) shelving system.
Eventually Hughes gets himself into the kitchen, puts water on for coffee, pours juice, retrieves the paper, as he does each morning, and sits down, slowly, at the table. The phone machine blinks no doubt a burgeoning set of commiserations, blank apologies and empty well wishes. Where has Janet gone off to? Aren’t they supposed to have done something last night? Hughes couldn’t for the life of him recall.
Hughes doesn’t open the paper nor make a move when the kettle starts to scream. Outside the kitchen window a large crow perches on a branch, staring in. The kettle’s screech seems to emanate from inside the bird—-a wild warning signal of some kind. The beast’s black eye pulses in time with the message machine’s blinking red light. He is tempted to view the bird as an omen. But of what, he wasn’t sure. The bird shivered its wings once. Hughes wants to laugh but the winged beast has settled into a posture that can only be described as arresting. It won’t look away.
Hughes stands up and, on tragicomic cue, knocks over the ceramic coffee canister. It breaks into pieces in front of the fridge. But even this is okay, only a little mess has slipped out onto the floor, as though he has been given full immunity to be his normal sloppy self, to smudge and clutter his way back into life again. Free to start again. That somehow, out of the blue, there is this chance…Should I?
Then, close on its heels: I must speak with Nora.