Paul Kolsby - Ear to the Ground

The mayor, too, was feeling the heat. Publicly, he proclaimed Los Angeles “a safe and beautiful place to live.” Privately, though, he watched the exodus with a mixture of desolation and fear. Eventually, he began making calls, looking for the kind of help only the federal government could give. And so it came to pass, on the morning of August 9, that the president’s motorcade stopped traffic on Highland Avenue, creating a nightmare for anyone trying to hop into Burbank on the 101.

The president was in a peculiar mood. He had been shaken by the news that morning of Jerry Garcia’s death. Because he had inhaled. The Grateful Dead’s concert at the Avalon Ballroom in 1968 had made an impression on him he would always have to repudiate for political reasons. Riding in his limousine, he remembered that night’s second set, when he had peaked during the drums and had been frightened by Mickey Hart’s primal pounding of the tom-toms. But “Morning Dew” came and calmed the future president’s heart. He’d abandoned his shoes and made his way toward the stage, where a freckle-faced girl with flowers in her hair danced next to him. Seized with presidential confidence, he had grabbed her by the waist and spent the following week with her.

As the president’s limousine moved down Highland and he sat listening to “China Cat Sunflower,” he decided to cancel his dinner with the mayor and stop by the candlelight vigil in Griffith Park.

The president had lunch at the Center for Earthquake Studies with Charlie Richter, but their seismological discussion lasted only three minutes. Preoccupied, the president asked quietly if Charlie had ever seen the Grateful Dead. Charlie perked up. “I took a leave of absence my junior year of college to follow them.”

“No kidding?” The president put down his fork.

“How ‘bout you?”

“About thirty shows,” the president said. “I have like a hundred tapes. Most aren’t soundboards. Twentieth generation or something. But I like the crackle.”

“I can’t believe it’s over.”

“When was your first show?” the president asked.

“Telluride, ′78.”

“Friday night or Saturday?”

“Saturday, I think.”

“Saturday.” The president leaned back and concentrated. “‘Franklin’s Tower,’ ‘Tennessee Jed,’ ‘Scarlet/Fire’ …?”

“That’s the one …”

Ian Marcus was a millionaire. Just after the prediction, with every studio in town bidding on Ear to the Ground, pressure mounted for Grace to track Ian down. Ethan jumped down her throat the minute she arrived at the office. “It’s your fucking boy friend’s script,” he’d told her. “Why haven’t I seen it?”

You can’t buy luck in this town, she thought. Like William Goldman says: “Nobody knows anything …”

The deal had closed a few minutes before midnight, in a booth at Jones. What a nightmare. Michael Lipman, one of the world’s great assholes, was having the time of his life. And, Grace knew, there’s nothing worse than an ecstatic asshole. Ian didn’t say a single word, just sipped champagne and performed calculations on a legal pad. Once, he leaned over and French-kissed her. How could she refuse?

Grace made one last call to business affairs, asking if they’d go as high as seven figures. She was told the president of the studio was reading the script, or skimming it anyway, and it was almost an hour before he consented to spend a million dollars to buy Ear to the Ground for Ethan Carson.

By midday on August 9, several FM stations were playing nothing but Grateful Dead, but the AM talk shows continued to feature earthquake commentary. At CES, the mayor and the president made a joint statement, separated by a beaming Caruthers. Then the president disappeared into the Prediction Lab, where he sat telling Charlie funny stories about the Europe ′72 tour. Soon they were nearly friends, and Charlie was invited to accompany him to Griffith Park.

As the president’s motorcade cut through traffic and turned left into the park, Deadheads gawked at the sleek black limos, wondering what industry bigwigs had decided to make the scene. Around the carousel, thousands of people had gathered: gauze-draped girls whirring among bare-chested boy-men who wailed and beat bongo drums.

The president watched quietly for a few minutes, and signaled to his driver that it was time to move on. Charlie laid a hand on his arm.

“I think I’m going to stay,” he said.

The president smiled and shook his hand. “Of course.”

Charlie watched the motorcade pull away. He took off his jacket and loosened his tie, and hiked over the rise of grass toward the carousel. Halfway down the slope, a girl about twenty looked up. She wore a tie-dyed dress and had a long braid down her back.

“Hey,” she said.

Charlie stopped.

“I know who you are. But you don’t have to talk about it.”

He smiled.

“You should take off your shoes,” she said, then turned up the music on a tape deck next to her. From the speaker, Jerry’s voice rose, strained, struggling to reach the high notes:

“Wake now, discover that you are the song that the morning brings.

But the heart has its seasons, its evening, and thoughts of its own.”

THE GOVERNOR SAT, FEET UP, LOOKING AT HIS DESK DIARY and counting weeks until the New Hampshire primary. He hated the word “gubernatorial.” It reminded him of “goober,” a term his adolescent son had used to describe a moron or geek. More important, the governor was concerned with ends, and “gubernatorial” stank of means. Humming a few bars of “Hail to the Chief,” he called in his speechwriter and demanded the fruits of that morning’s labor.

Fresh out of Yale, the kid never shaved. But the cunning little bastard would cut his own grandmother’s throat if she stood in the way of something he wanted. The governor loved that, happy to have someone so ruthless on his team.

“We go with a neg,” the kid said.

“That’s what I was thinking.” The governor nodded.

“We crush the earthquake. We crush the president and all the liberals. We support the mayor and the citizens. And we offer prayer as an answer, but only in closing.”

“Subtle.”

“Soft.”

“Subversive.”

“God bless California. God bless America,” said the governor, filling his chest with air.

“Practicing again?”

“Don’t be a smartass.”

At Warner Brothers Studios, on the second floor of Producer’s Building Seven, at the Tailspin Pictures conference table, sat the Finnish action director Henny Rarlin, whose blockbuster movie Die Hard as a Rock had earned him a place on the Hollywood A-minus list. A moment ago, Ethan Carson had tried to impress him by speaking some Finnish. No go. Seated on Ethan’s left was Grace, and next to her sat the newest member of the Million Dollar Spec Club. Ian wore tiny round tortoise-shell Armani eyeglasses which, he thought, made him look terribly intelligent. The three of them waited for Henny Rarlin to finish a heated conversation on his cellular phone.

“Why? Why, why, why?” he asked the apparatus. Then, loudly: “Well don’t call me until you fucking know .” He snapped his cellular before turning to the others and announcing, “I haven’t read the script.”

Ethan, Grace, and Ian grimaced appropriately.

“But I love earthquakes. I made some notes.”

“Notes?” Ian took off his glasses. “But you haven’t read the script .”

“Ian …” Grace tried.

“I don’t need to read your fucking …”