The Empty Glass (22 page)

67.

U
mbrellas rippled in the stands and men ducked and fell in the lines that snaked from the ticket windows. They were screaming. Well, that was my impression. It’s hard for me to piece it all together, since time changed in those few moments. The drug wasn’t helping. Everything happened in seconds but the seconds kept stretching. A hundred different things unspooled at once, like drama dioramas playing out across the track; you could rewind the film, and each time you would see something new:

STOP
,
REWIND
,
PLAY
.

Yes, I grabbed my son and held him. Yes, I put the gun to his temple, and yes, I had my hand around his neck and Johnny reached for his gun and Cagney reached for his, and I think I said one of those clichéd things like “Don’t move or I’ll shoot!” or “One false move and he’s dead!”

I led Max to the parking lot as screams and cheering filled the track, and when I tripped he fell straight to the ground.

•   •   •

C
alm down, calm down,
I told myself as I parked the cab at a gas station near Evansville. There were oil stains like bats on the cement and a service island with pumps painted pastel green. I brought Max to the restroom. It smelled of urine and chlorine. The faucet shrieked as I washed his bloody face and took his shirt off and rinsed and wrung it in the sink. It was still wet, so I carried it as I led him shirtless back into the lot.

I swear I saw a flash come from an El Dorado parked at an angle along the belled fence facing the Tastee Freez. I turned and looked behind me as we passed the car and I swore I saw another flash come from the back.

But there was nothing.

It wasn’t long before we were outside Mission Viejo, but the streets weren’t clearly marked. I was on the back roads, passing hotels and the gas stations that had been abandoned when the highway was first built. The world is changing: You know that, Doc. Gray fluorescence bloomed in convenience stores and red neon reflected in electric waves on the streets that looked like oil.

I was falling asleep. I pulled out an inhaler and swallowed the strips, but this time the fire and the metal were gone. I nodded off, crossing the center divide near Encinitas when the semi blew its horn, and I looked up just in time to see the big rig looming, blades of rain like translucent grass in the lights—and it’s true what they say: Everything slows. I even had time to say, aloud, “You’re doing okay,” which woke Max as I yanked the wheel to the right, so hard that I went into the ditch.

“Shit,” I said, climbing from the car. The cars hummed past.

I heard sirens.

“That’s no good, Dad,” Max said.

“I know: car’s stuck.”

“I mean your language,” he said, stepping toward the road and raising his right hand, flagging down a car.

“Don’t, Max.”

“Why?”

“No one knows we’re here.”

68.

T
he hotel was one of those creaky Victorian structures they call California Gingerbread. There was a wooden porch with a swing that drifted in the wind. The steps that led to the
WELCOME
mat at the front door belled in the middle. Turns out it wasn’t a hotel so much as a bed-and-breakfast in a part of Titusville now visited only by people who had gotten lost or, like us, had too few options.

I rang the bell.

The owner was one Carol McFadden, a plump widow in a nightgown and fringed cap that covered her curlers. Traces of cream slicked her skin and smelled of cough drops. She greeted us at the front door, yawning, having already been to bed. But she was “glad to see” us, she said. “It must be good to get out of the rain.”

“Sure is,” I said, shaking off in the front parlor. A front desk with a brass bell and a guest book fronted the side of a staircase that led up to the rooms.

“How did you find us?”

“The truth, ma’am,” I said, “is we got lost.”

“That seems to be the only way these days. Just the two of you?” she said brightly, stepping behind the desk.

“Sure enough.”

She frowned at Max. “Your boy okay?”

“He fell off his bike.”

“Sorry to hear it, son.” She looked back up at me. “Deposit in cash?”

Shit, I had no money. Somehow I’d forgotten that.

“Sure,” Max said, taking a wad of bills from his plastic cowboy wallet and handing it to the woman.

It was Monopoly money.

The woman looked at me. “Surely the boy is joking.”

“Wait!” He dug into his wallet again. “Sorry.”

He handed her a hundred-dollar bill.

“Well,” she said. “I’ll be!”

“Where did you get that?” I asked my son.

“Horse books,” he said.

We signed in. I used the names “John and Al Rawlston.”

“Is there any place to eat around here?” I asked.

“There’s an all-night café about ten miles back, but you don’t exactly look in the mood for another trip. Hmm, I didn’t hear a car, either.”

“We parked around the block.”

“You could have used the lot.”

“If it’s all right with you, ma’am, we’ll leave the car where it is. We really just need a shower and sleep.”

She hesitated. “Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll cook you something up myself.”

“You sure? It’s late.”

“Don’t mind,” she said. “I like the company.”

We went up to dry off in the room. There were two single beds facing a Zenith, a double window looking out over a fire escape with a view of the parking lot below and, past it, the wharfs and the docks off the beach. The room was decorated like a dollhouse, with pointless small tables, lacy pillows, and pastels.

It was like being inside an Easter egg.

I put the tape and the diary on the bedside table. Max took a bath and I took a shower and we climbed into the bed, wet clothes over the shower rod, and watched the TV that hardly worked. Well, it was past sign-off anyway. They had already shown the American flag.

“So what did you do with the tape?” you say.

“You’re like a broken record, Doc.”

“Because you’re not telling the truth.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

You stop the current tape, take one of the others from the unending pile, cue it up, and hit
PLAY
:

“—called the cops.” It was Carol McFadden’s voice. “Well, they were asking—”

STOP
.
REWIND
.
PLAY
:

“It did strike me as strange,” Carol says, “that this fellow with the son was so interested in listening to some silly tape, but what can I say? Maybe he was a music fan. I like 101 Strings myself. Do you?”

“Can’t say that I know them. Please continue.”

“Well, you should hear ‘Gypsy Campfires.’ You haven’t heard a thing until you’ve heard ‘Gypsy Campfires.’ Well, I try to be helpful. It was my late husband’s machine. I don’t even know how to work it, and I wasn’t sure it
did
work, but this gentleman just seemed so
keen
on it. That’s all I can say. I’ve never felt that way about music, have you?”

“Now, please—”

“It wasn’t music. That’s the strange thing. At least if it
was
, it was like no music I’ve ever heard. Well, I heard him listening to this, and some of it—!”

“What?”

“Well, I can’t be sure, but . . . sighs. And moans. Well, if the man hadn’t had his young son with him, I could have sworn.”

“What?”

“It was the sound of carnal love.”

•   •   •

T
here are three distinct sections on the tape, Doctor. I am not sure why I think there are three sections, but they seem to reflect different times.

The first is just sex: loud and vocal. The less said about this the better, as I’m sure you can imagine it.

The rest of the tape lasts about sixty minutes and was recorded, I think, on the afternoon of August 4 and then again in the early morning hours of August 5. During the first twenty minutes, you can hear Marilyn and Eunice Murray talking.

“Marilyn?” the housekeeper says. “He won’t go away. He’s outside.”

“Tell him I’m not here.”

“He
knows
you’re here.”

“Tell him I’m sleeping.”

Shouting.

“He won’t believe you. He’s upset. You never sleep. He needs to see you.”

“Well, then, tell him to wait. Tell him—”

About five minutes later, you can hear Marilyn and Kennedy talking. It’s not always clear. The sounds seem to come from a long way off, as if the interaction took place far from the transmitter in Monroe’s closet. See, the quality is poor. Listen, however, to what happens when you reach 1406. At this precise spot, Marilyn says what is almost certainly “promised me.” Rewind a few times, and you’ll hear the “you”:

“You promised me.”

This is followed by Kennedy saying, “I promised you nothing.”

“You [inaudible] me,” she says.

I am sure the missing word here is “fucked.” Though I do not expect the word that I have just written to survive. It will no doubt be crossed out, as it most likely is as you are reading [redacted]

“I feel passed around!” She sounds agitated, drugged, or drunk. “I feel used! I feel like a piece of meat!”

At 1506 (pay attention, now—there is a lot of static), you will hear Kennedy say, “Where is it?”

Marilyn screams something.

“It
has
to be here.”

The sound quality is poor. As the people move about the bedroom, now near to and now far from the mics, the quality fluctuates. What is clear is the fact that the voices grow louder, angrier, until it’s obvious that they are arguing. At, say, 1708, Kennedy sounds shrill, like a querulous old lady as he asks repeatedly, “Where is it? Where the fuck is it?”

You will notice that this portion of the tape ends with the sound of a slamming door.

From 1897 to 1945, the tape is silent. You will hear only white noise, a few clicking sounds, no clues, no evidence. Believe me. I have heard it. The silence is so long you may be tempted to turn the tape off, thinking it is over. Do not do this. Instead, fast-forward to the point at which the counter turns from 1430 to 1431. Here, you will hear feedback, an odd clicking sound, and voices.

I believe they are the voices of Robert Kennedy, Peter Lawford, and Marilyn Monroe.

Kennedy is angrier and louder now. Marilyn sounds drunk or stoned. She is probably both.

In the fifty-five minutes that follow, from 2123 to 3001, three things are clear. The first is that, right off the bat, Kennedy says, “We have to know. We can make any arrangements that you want, but we must find it. It’s important to the family.”

They must have gotten close to the rice-sized transmitter, because you hear a clacking on the tape, which I insist is the sound of hangers moving back on the rack in the closet, clothes being shuffled around as Kennedy and Lawford search for the bug that, they believe, was installed at Marilyn’s request. They had their own bug; they had their own tape. But Marilyn’s?

They are still searching.

Next through the static is what I can only call a flopping sound, followed again by that Kennedy old-lady voice and Lawford saying, “Calm down. Calm—”

“Get out!” Marilyn shouts. “Get the fuck out of the—”

“Calm down!”

Here, from 2104 to 2540, you’ll hear crashing, then whispered comforting sounds, as if someone is putting a child to bed.

Then there is a long silence.

The last part of this tape is a conversation, clearly heard, between Lawford and Kennedy.

“I’m going back to San Francisco,” Kennedy says.

“San Francisco,” says Lawford. “What about—”

“Call once I’m out of the area.”

“You can’t just.”

“I will. I can. You’ll call.”

There are elisions after this, as there are elisions everywhere, missing pieces of the tape, missing pieces of the puzzle and the diary and the story. Missing lives. For the next thirty minutes, it sounds as if the tape is being turned on and then off. At 4106 you will hear a steady clicking sound, followed by a sort of hollow whoosh. Other than that, and the sound of the door slamming finally shut, there is nothing.

Nothing, that is, until the phone rings at 5401. The sound is abrupt. The phone rings five times, and someone picks it up. You can hear the vague clatter of plastic against plastic. No one speaks. Someone gently puts the phone in its receiver.

Someone has finally hung up.

69.

N
ow your own tape runs. The smoke from your cigarette rises to the ceiling, where it hangs around the bulb; the fan has stopped. You blink, then crush the cigarette into the ashtray.

“Where is the tape?” you ask.

“I burned it.”

“Then why did you give me instructions?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You kept saying, ‘You will find, you will hear.’ You’re giving me
instructions
.”

“It’s a form of speech.”

“It’s not a form you use about something that no longer exists.”

“I had to get rid of it. Well, now I knew the ending. Why keep it in the world, you know? And, anyway, they came for us. I knew they would.”

•   •   •

T
here was a knock at our door, so I wrapped a towel around my waist, turned off the tape, and answered it. Carol McFadden stood in the hall carrying a silver tray covered with a series of white napkins. “I hope,” she said, “I’m not interrupting anything.”

“No.” I held the door shut.

“Well, may I come in?”

I turned to Max. He was under the covers, smiling.

I opened the door, and the woman saw my towel and jumped as if I had given her a shock, but professionally proceeded to place the tray on the table near the bed anyway.

“Turkey sandwich on rye with cheese, potato salad, to-maytas from my garden,” she said, unveiling her concoctions. “Snack Packs for dessert: sorry, no homemade.” She smiled. “I did what I could.”

“We really appreciate it,” I said.

“Don’t mention it. So nice to see a father and son spending some time together. All too often that sort of connection is lost in this day and age.”

“I agree.”

“Too bad about the young feller’s nose.”

“Thanks. He’ll be okay.”

She was halfway out the door when she stopped, turned, and looked back. “Good night, Mr. Fitzgerald.”

The door shut quietly behind her.

“How did she know my name?” I asked.

“What, Dad?”

I ran to the window and looked over the fire escape.

The B. F. Fox van idled under a faint pool of streetlight.

•   •   •

S
o that was when we left: We ran in the dark down the street that ended in the beach, a boardwalk and a pier leading out to the ocean. You couldn’t see the sea, but the waves were loud at the edge where a paved road led past trash cans and signs saying
NO DUMPING
. The smell of rank fish and salt and seaweed was strong. Along the shoreline I saw fires and, ten yards out, surfers and the lights of fishing boats on the surface.

Sirens sounded in the distance.

I turned, still holding Max’s hand, and saw a train of red and blue lights streaming down the main street.

“Come on.” I pulled Max into the sand that made it hard to run. We stumbled together as the cruisers pulled up to the shore road and parked, lights rolling. The bobbing bluish flashlights were all I saw as the cops headed down to the beach.

I slipped into the sloped sand under the pier, the pilings slick with algae and seaweed, darkened in rings where the surf rose and fell.

“What are we doing?”

“We have to be quiet.”

“Okay.” Max reached for my hand. He gave me his thimble.

The flashlight beams bobbed, revealing tufts of sand grass, dead crabs, and cracked gray clamshells.

Cheering came from one of the fires along the shore.

The beams all turned toward the sound, then went back to crawling raggedly along the sand.

One of them darted to us.

I clutched Max’s hand.

I don’t remember how long we waited, Doc, but after the flashlights disappeared, cars pulling away, we walked to the fires where the surfers sat on boards and driftwood shirtless and smoking or playing guitars and drinking from a shared bottle of Scotch. Empties littered the sand.

“I use your fire?” I asked them.

“Sure. What for?”

I held the Monroe diary up.
“Ulysses,”
I said, and tossed it in.

The pages of that sad book curled in the flames, ignited, then blackened and drifted up into the night air like bats. I watched them float in the smoke and the sparks. Then I tossed in the tape, which curled and melted, until—

“Dad,” Max said.

“What, sport?”

He didn’t answer.

“Sport?” I turned toward him. “Oh my God.”