Movie people, even the most invisible gaffer or best boy, have a self-importance that is understandable because everyone seems to want to be in the movies. It's an interesting phenomenon: Ask ten people if they want to be President, and surely some of them will say no. Ask them if they want to be in the movies in some capacity, and you can bet most if not all will say yes. The irony is, filmmaking generally has to be one of the most boring ways to spend a day. Nothing is done quickly, and everything is done four, five, six . . . endless times. There is not much sense of community either, because everyone's task on a set is so specific and time-consuming that you do your job right up until a shot is made, then run like hell to get going on the next one.
But as is true with so many jobs, the consumer only sees the final product, and that is so glamorous and exciting it's hard not to want to have a go at it.
Standing with a coffee in hand, I looked back at the set and remembered my last set: how, when filming Wonderful, I frequently had the feeling I was watching my life more than living it. It was a haunting, ominous thing to experience and took time to go away. Part of it returned the day I heard Phil was dead. As mentioned, some of my first thoughts after I had the news was to picture his death cinematically. That could be attributed to shock, but not many months before, I was seeing everything I knew through the lens of an inner camera. I Am a Camera is a wonderful title, but isn't healthy when it's your life. Looking at the set of this film made me remember my last days in Hollywood.
"Mr. Gregston? Weber Gregston?"
I turned around and saw a nice-looking thirtyish woman. "Yes?"
"You don't know me, but I sort of know you. My name is Linda Webster. I did wardrobe for Phil Strayhorn on the Midnight films?" She put out a tentative hand to shake. Without really looking, I reached for it but a second later yelped. Looking down, I saw a big needle sticking into my thumb.
She snatched it out and stuck it back into a pin cushion she was wearing on her wrist – the giveaway sign of a person doing costumes. "I'm so sorry! I always forget . . . I'm sorry."
"It's okay, it's okay. Really!" Her expression was so stricken and concerned I felt more protective of her feelings than my beaming thumb. "Come on. Let's have a coffee." I held up mine.
"You were in Europe awhile, huh?"
"What do you mean?"
"Europeans say 'Let's have a coffee.' Americans say 'Let's have coffee.' Singular and plural, depending on which side of the ocean you're from. How long were you there?"
"About a year."
"Tha-a-at's right, I remember! Phil talked about you a lot and was always wondering where you were that day. He used to bring your postcards onto the set to show us. They were really funny.
"What do you think of his stunt? Did he tell you what he's doing now?"
"What he's doing? He's dead."
She smirked and shook her head. "That's not what I hear."
"Lol . . . Linda, is it? Linda, I'm staying with Sasha Makrianes. She found the body. He's dead, you know?"
"I know Sasha. She found a man with his head blown off, but that's all."
"Linda, what are you telling me? He was my best friend."
She had the eyes of someone who thinks they're more cunning than they are. Yet those eyes also said she knew something, maybe a secret, that I didn't. Her expression said she was going to stretch it out as far as it would go.
Finky Linky came up from behind and put a hand on my shoulder. "Hi, Linda! I didn't know you were working on this."
She made an exaggerated pout and stuck out her bottom lip. "I saw you before and said hello, Wyatt, but you were too busy with Debbie and the others."
He made a Finky Linky laugh and, speaking in the famous voice, said, "I saw you, but I told you: We've got to stop meeting here like this."
"Tell Wyatt what you just told me."
She shrugged. "I said everybody knows Phil isn't dead. That the thing was a whole big ugly setup."
The Finky voice disappeared and Wyatt's came back, soft but on edge. "What are you talking about?"
"He's been showing up all over town since it happened. I mean, come on, Wyatt, what about that shootout at the cemetery? Do you really think that was spontaneous? The whole thing's a setup."
"Where was he seen?"
"Someone saw him having a hotdog at Tommy's, Walt Plotkin saw him on Melrose at L.A. Eyeworks, I don't know – I've heard a lot of people saw him in different places."
"Doing what?"
"Hanging around. Drinking, eating dinner. Normal things."
I looked at him. "Sounds to me like a National Enquirer headline: 'Philip Strayhorn Found Alive and Shopping on Melrose Avenue.'"
"But it would explain your tapes, wouldn't it? Instead of being tapes from the dead."
"Wyatt, for Christ's sake, do you really believe that bullshit? They say it about every celebrity who ever died! Elvis lives. JFK lives. Howard Hughes."
"Bullshit? Thank you very much!" Linda turned and walked away.
Neither of us paid attention. Wyatt counted things off on his fingers. "It would make complete sense, Weber. A horrible, melodramatic sense. The little girl, an angel messenger, if you please, comes with warnings from God not to make these movies. And we know he didn't want to do them anymore. And we know he was very much on edge, maybe even sick. And it wouldn't be the first time this has happened out here. Either as a publicity thing or because someone cracks and winds up in Lu-Lu Land."
"What about Sasha?"
"What about her? Somehow Phil knew she was sick before she did."
"Come on! What about her pregnancy? Did he know that too?"
"You can tell when certain women are pregnant by the look on their faces. That's nothing new."
"What about my tattoo, then?"
He took my coffee and had a sip. "That may be your magic and not his, Weber. We haven't even talked about that yet. Remember, you were the one who went to Rondua, not Phil."
6
Whenever a dream comes true, you take one step closer to God. But the closer you are, the better you see him, and he may not be at all what you imagined.
I fell in love with Cullen James the way I'd always wanted to fall in love: with the joyous enthusiasm and devotion of a teenager, the grateful appreciation of experience. I wanted her the moment I met her. She was someone to fight for, someone to long for. I spoke to her too fast, wanting her to know everything. Her smile said she understood my hurry. My dream came true.
We never went to bed. I never tasted her thin mouth. She was happily married to a man I had no quarrel with, a man who was capable and strong and essential for her. I wasn't, and that is where my dream came true too much. I'd finally found what I wanted, an invaluable coin in the street, but there was no image on the other side of that coin. Cullen wanted a friend, not someone else to share her life with.
Why Danny James and not Weber Gregston? An array of reasons, some of which you'll find in her book Bones of the Moon. But what I remember best (and most painfully) was a conversation we once had where I asked her that very question. Why him and not me?
"Because you and I drive each other crazy too much, Weber. I drive myself crazy enough with all my nervousness and eccentricities. You and I fan each other's flames. Right now that's okay – it's wonderful! – but we're only just beginning. You always smell good and are on your best behavior at the beginning of an affair. But what happens later when you know from one glimpse the other's in a shitty mood and has no way to get out of it? Or the best way to retaliate is to stay silent for – days? You and I would do that to each other. We'd fight too long and be mean, even when we didn't really want to. We're too alike, Weber. The person who drives me craziest is me. What happens when two me's or two you's get into bed at night? Sure, we make great love and have the best conversations in the world, but we also know the tenderest parts, like karate masters. All the most dangerous pressure points. Hit them here and they die in a second. Hit them there and destroy their ego.