John Belushi Is Dead (10 page)

“But at her age? She's only eight years old!”

“I'd rather have her watching sex than something that was horribly violent. I mean, what's wrong with this country? It's okay to show people getting their limbs blown off, but sex is a problem?”

It seemed like a good argument at the time, but looking back I'm not so sure it was the greatest excuse for letting me watch movies like
Porky's
and
Bachelor Party
, movies we watched mainly because Dad wanted to. Still, that wasn't all I watched—I also loved Disney films and musicals like
West Side Story
. It just seemed an unfortunate coincidence that campus comedies were the kinds of movies Dad liked to put on when Aunt Lynette was around for her weekly visit (or inspection, as he liked to call it).

“The film ratings are there for a reason,” Lynette went on.

“Aunt Lynette,” I said, joining the conversation, “what does ‘socially inept' mean?”

“It means brilliant and unique,” Dad chimed in, and I didn't understand why he sounded angry.

“Jim,” Lynette started to say, but Dad cut her off.

“I think you've said enough for one afternoon. Lay off Hilda. She's fine.”

“How do you know that, Jim? Did you read it in the stars?”

“Yeah, I did, and I've got a prediction for you, too.”

“Sweetheart!” Mom snapped. “We do not have negative energy in this house.”

“Only on Saturday afternoons,” Dad said, glaring at Lynette, who barely flinched.

My only friend at primary school was Janey, a redheaded loner who was all gangly limbs and awkwardness. The kids teased Janey because she had knots in her hair and smelled like cat food. They teased me because I hung around her, but I didn't care. We were outsiders, dangerous outlaws like Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek in
Badlands
, misunderstood like Beatty and Dunaway in
Bonnie and Clyde
. Apart from Janey, there was no one but Mom and Dad and the movies, and the occasional game of Scrabble. Dad loved Scrabble almost as much as he loved movies. I don't think Mom and I were much competition, but he enjoyed it nonetheless, probably for exactly that reason. We weren't good enough to make him feel like a failure.

“See, a master's in English
is
good for something,” he would say with bitterness after a triple-word score. “It's not like they appreciate it down at the factory.”

“Why do you work at the factory if you don't like it?” I asked.

“Because he can't work as a teacher anymore,” Mom replied, not looking up from her letters.

“Why?”

“Because he was fired.”

“Why were you fired, Dad?”

“Because, Hilda, I tried to teach something that was about real life. Something you couldn't find in a syllabus.”

“Jim, smoking dope with a group of ten-year-olds behind the basketball courts was not the best decision of your career.”

Dad threw up his hands. “Goddamnit, Martha, it was their dope!”

Janey and I would play in the canyons that ran alongside our
neighborhood. We would climb the trees and tear our pants and talk about what we wanted to be when we grew up.

“I want to be a movie star,” Janey would say, twirling a ratty string of hair between her fingers. “Like Drew Barrymore. What about you, Hilda? Do you want to be a movie star?”

“I want to work in an office,” I told her, thinking of my aunt Lynette with her nice clothes that didn't smell like incense. “Where everything is shiny and new and I have to wear a suit to work. I want to be a businesslady and make lots of money.”

“Lame!”

Once when I met Janey in the canyon she was so upset she was shaking. She told me she had just found out that one day we were all going to die. She told me our bodies would be put in the ground, and we would rot, and worms and maggots would eat our flesh until all that was left was our skeletons. I still remember how my brain tried to digest the information, letting it swirl around before settling with heaviness in my heart. I was terrified. My bowels loosened. I ran home crying. I was angry at Janey, angry that she wanted to make me feel bad by telling me such awful things. But now I know that Janey wanted someone else to share her revelation, to feel her terror. She was looking for someone to commiserate with. I burst through the back door of our run-down cottage and fell into Mom's arms. With heaving sobs I told her all that Janey had told me, and asked her if Janey was lying, asked with growing panic what it all meant. Mom sat me at the kitchen table and made me a hot cocoa. She poured herself a green tea and sat down, folding her hands in front of her.

“What Janey told you was true,” she said, “but there is no reason to be afraid.”

“But I don't want to die!”

“It's a very natural part of life, Hilda. Everything dies, so new things can be born. It's very beautiful.”

“It's not beautiful!” I screamed. “It's scary!”

Mom laughed. She reached out and took my hand. “It's not scary, honey,” she said, rubbing my fingers against her cheek. “Some people think it is, and spend their whole lives worrying about it. Many people are too scared to even talk about it. But you should never be scared, Hilda.”

“I don't want you to die, Mommy!” I sniveled.

“Well, your father and I believe that when we die, our spirits go to another place. Our bodies may die, but our spirits live forever. And when that happens, we will all be together. Doesn't that sound wonderful?”

“I guess.”

“I'm not going anywhere for a long, long time, Hilda. But when I do, won't it be comforting for you to know that someone is waiting for you on the other side? That your mom and dad are there waiting for you?”

“But how will I know you are there?”

Mom took my face in both her hands. “When I die, I will give you a sign,” she promised. “Even though I will be dead, I will still be with you. I will always be with you, Hilda. Everything you do, everywhere you go, you will feel me with you. I promise.”

My mother had lied. Sitting in my bedroom in my aunt's house, listening for Mom's voice in the night, I felt nothing from her, not even the vaguest whisper of her presence. She was gone, Dad was gone, and all that remained was my fear that in surviving the crash that took my family, I had somehow managed to cheat death, and one day, when I least expected it, death would come to collect.

I
LAY ON MY BED
, turning the tile over in my fingers. It was without a doubt the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I'd heard stories of people jumping the fence around Mansfield's house to retrieve whatever they could from the wreckage of the demolition: tiles, concrete, even the pool handrails. But I didn't know anyone who had a tile that Jayne had held in her hand and actually given to someone to express her love, gratitude, and respect. Maybe I was romanticizing Jayne's relationship with Hank and the men who built her pool, but it seemed such a personal gift to give someone, such a symbolic gesture.

At least, that's the way I felt when Hank handed it to me,
bestowed
it upon me. I felt like I'd been given a portal to another time, a key to history. Sure, Mansfield was a chick with big boobs and a bad peroxide job, but she grabbed this town by the balls, shook down Hollywood and took whatever she wanted, and went out like a true legend. I couldn't help admiring someone with that
much ambition. At least she knew what she wanted and did everything it took to get there.

I wrapped the tile in cotton wool and placed it in a small, wooden heart-shaped jewelery box on my shelf with the rest of the collection. That night I had a terrible dream: the earth in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre had cracked open, an enormous canyon running the length of Hollywood Boulevard. The entire sky turned from blue to pink, and the sun was a flaming red ball hovering above the Hollywood sign. Tourists flung themselves into the gaping hole, disappearing into the center of the earth, clutching their cheap souvenirs to their chests. Photographers lined the edges of the hole, snapping pictures with archaic cameras that had enormous flashbulbs and yelling after the tourists to give them their best look. The people smiled and positioned themselves midair for the photographers, striking exaggerated poses during their descents, and I flung myself in after them, flashing a winning smile on the way down. When I looked up I saw Benji at the edge of the canyon, snapping photos of my descent with his digital camera, and I screamed for him to help, but he didn't hear me, or wouldn't.

The next morning when I woke up, all I could think about was Hank and the tile. I leaped out of bed, pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, and called a cab. The morning sun was strong; I thought of babies left to bake in cars, dogs tied to chain-link fences with no water bowls. By the time the cab arrived at Hank's, I was in a daze, propelled by a sense that there was nowhere else I wanted to be, nowhere else I was
meant
to be. When I got to the top of the stairs, the door was already open, and I could see Hank inside on his sofa in front of the television. I tapped on the door and he looked up.

“You're here early,” he grunted, as if he'd been expecting me all along.

“I know. I, uh, wanted to ask you about Jayne Mansfield.”

“Why don't you come in, then?”

I stepped inside. I heard familiar dramatic music coming from the television, then the wail of an ambulance siren. I looked at the screen.

“
Rebel Without a Cause
,” I said as I sat down. It was the end of the film: James Dean was standing outside the planetarium, defeated; his best friend was being wheeled away in a body bag. “This is my favorite James Dean movie.”

“Humph,” Hank snorted. “Everyone goes on about James Dean being this big legend and all, but he was nothin' but a little freak. Seriously, that kid was messed up in the head. I used to clean rooms at a crappy two-star hotel down Sunset Boulevard. I caught him crawling into one of the room windows one night, buck naked. He saw me and just laughed, basically swung his prick at me so I'd get a better look.”

My eyes widened. “Wow.”

“Yeah. Wow.”

On the television the ambulance drove off, siren blaring, and the words THE END appeared on the screen. Hank stood up, his back creaking, and shuffled into the kitchen, where he put the kettle on.

“Did you meet anyone else famous?” I asked.

“Sure. Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Lauren Bacall, Jerry Lewis—”

“Holy shit,” I said, impressed. “I've lived here all my life and the best I saw was Paris Hilton at a frozen yogurt stand.”

Hank brought two cups of tea over and handed one to me. He was about to sit down when something stopped him. He glanced at the front door, hesitated, then wandered over and snapped the lock shut on the screen door.

“They weren't anything to get excited about,” he said, groaning as he finally settled back down. He was wearing boxers and an old T-shirt, and his hair was sticking up at an angle, like he'd fallen asleep, or passed out, somewhere he shouldn't have. “Just 'cause you're famous doesn't make you less of an asshole, or a bore.”

I fanned my face with my hands. The apartment felt like the inside of an incinerator. “It's so hot in here,” I said. “How can you stand it?”

“Heat don't bother me one bit. Where I grew up, it was so cold your balls would crawl up your ass just to get warm.”

“Where was that?”

Hank turned the TV to a news channel and cranked the volume up loud. A police chase was taking place a few blocks from where we were, the news helicopter trailing a red station wagon as it swerved and jackknifed its way across town.

“Idiot,” Hank snarled. “I hope he crashes and kills himself before he gets a chance to kill anyone else.”

We watched the car chase for a bit until the driver was brought down by a strategically placed stop stick. “So you wanna tell me more about this guy who knocked himself off in my bathroom?” Hank said. “This Bernie guy?”

“Bernie Bernall,” I said, remembering all that Benji had told me, and what I'd found on the Internet. “He was a big movie star for a while, but his voice was no good for the talkies. His career went downhill fast. No one would even talk to him anymore. Apparently he ended up working at a hot dog stand outside the studio where he used to be a big star. I guess he had plenty of good reasons to be depressed.”

“Yeah, well, the guy was a pussy if you ask me,” Hank said.
“People have had to live with much worse than what he went through. So your face gets a little singed, so what? No reason to carve yourself up like a Christmas turkey.”

“People have killed themselves over less.”

“Boo-hoo.”

“Just because he was famous doesn't mean his life was great. The studios were really evil in those days. They got Judy Garland hooked on drugs and drove Marilyn Monroe to suicide. Well, them and the Kennedys.”

“If I had all that money, I wouldn't have a goddamn care in the world.”

“Was Jayne Mansfield happy?”

“As far as I could see, she was having a ball. She enjoyed every minute of her life.”

“So do you think it was her time to go?”

Hank gave me a peculiar look. “You driving at something?”

I looked at the floor, avoiding his gaze. “You know how when people die we always say it was meant to be? No matter how terrible or out of the blue it was, we say that it must have been their time to go. That it was meant to happen.”

“That's a pile of BS. There weren't nothin' poetic about her death,” he said. “There was no goddamn reason in the world that a lovely lady like that gotta be taken in such a horrible way. Did you see what happened to that car she was in? I'm surprised anyone survived that. Those poor damn kids in the back.”

“You got a wife, Hank?”