Bruce Wagner - Memorial

Marjorie was moved, and quietly wept. She shared with Bonita what had happened to the liquor store owner and how she had tried to do her part; and given a gift to Cora when her dog fell ill. She felt a little awkward blowing her own horn — the sin of pride was on her mind — but the visitor was so full of life it was contagious. Bonita proclaimed them “kindred spirits,” old and wise enough to know how to spread joy with their great, good fortune, not to squander it, and that was a blessing from the Lord (“and Lucas”) Himself.

“I guess people like us, who were relatively comfortable before the shadow drawings, well, we tend to think, ‘Why did this happen to me?’ That nagging feeling that someone else was more deserving.”

“Yes! Yes, it’s true.”

The woman hit a nerve, and it was nice for Marj to be able to air things out.

“But it’s God’s way. I think that’s what Yogananda would have said. And it is God’s way how we choose to disperse those monies — we are His instruments. Well,” she said, standing, “I don’t want to preach at you! Or take any more of your time. I’m so sorry I barged in—”

“It’s all right, Mrs—”

She searched for the name.

“Billingsley. Bonita. And I certainly hope to see you at the Four Seasons — maybe before! I’m gonna give you my cellphone number; don’t know how to work the damn thing, but here it is, it’s a ‘917,’ don’t ask me why. (The area code.) Oh: you should talk to Lucas about the Expedited Awards Program — he’s not the pushy sort — well, he is but in a good way — because he knows how overwhelmed his Sisters can get at the news — the ‘1st blush’—it’d overwhelm anyone— and Lucas doesn’t like to foist things on people till they ask. And as much as he does tell us, I sometimes think he believes we’re supposed to find out the rest by osmosis. But I’m telling you, gal,” she said racily. “We are going to have one helluva time on that plane!” She reminded Marj of a character from an old movie — like a saloon girl, or some loosey-goosey roommate of Claudette Colbert. “I, for one, plan to get extremely drunk. I’m going to get drunk and stay drunk — for a month! On Baileys Irish Cream!”

“I’m a Baileys girl!”

“You are?”

“Keep it right by the nightstand.”

“Well, then!” She gave out a hoot. “We are going to get along gangbusters,” said Bonita, making her way to the front door. “But if I don’t see you, give me a call — here’s the number in Ojai too. Though I shan’t be there for long. My kids’re all grown and I have a very funny feeling it may be time for a Roman spring. The Roman Spring of Mrs Billingsley! I’m having my 7-year itch, only I waited awhile — it’s my 28-year itch!”

The women exchanged profuse goodbyes at the door, and as soon as she left, Marj ran to the mahogany bureau and took out the check to scrutinize it. There it was: $1,863,279.47. She was proud of herself for not having divulged the amount. Lucas Weyerhauser’s business card sat on top but this time she dialed his cellphone instead of the State of New York Blind Sister Beneficiary Hotline.

You have reached Lucas Weyerhauser. If this is regarding the State of New York Blind Sister Shadow Drawing, please press 1. If you’d like to leave a message for Lucas, please press 2. If you are a federally sworn merchant or vendor, please press 3.

She smiled like a schoolgirl then cut herself a piece of Marie Callender’s rhubarb pie.

AXEL was the boy who’d done the tsunami/Katrina edit with the Bobby Darin soundtrack. Joan thought it mordant, and not unclever; Lew said that ever since his son had read a story about teens doing good for others, he was stoked to come up with his own way of helping, but a devilish streak kept getting the best of him. He was that kind of kid.

His father told her that Axel got acutely strung out on People magazine’s Make-A-Wish PR porn: the adolescent with acute lymphoblastic leukemia who created videogames for other badass baldies where action figures zoom around on skateboards zapping cancer cells and collecting shields against chemo side effects…that one really got him going. There were a hundred more Leuk Skywalkers where he came from, all dying to get into the weekly rag, any rag, itching to join the American Idol deathrace decathlon. How we love to manufacture little saints — Stepanek set the bar pretty high. Then came the budding entrepreneurial altruists, cataclysm whores and parasites, their sinister stageparents hoping they’d be noticed, lauded by the Gates Foundation, invited to DeGeneres or GMA, everyone would somehow get their funky fame fix, teens and tweens healthy in body but inevitable burnouts by the time they hit their 20s — like the 9 year old who raised ¾ of a million to build water wells all over Africa…the snobslut from Maryland who donated 27-hundred prom dresses to seniors living in the Big Uneasy.

Axel Freiberg had higher aspirations.

Lew had 2 others, Drea and Fanny, but at 13 Axel was the oldest. (Joan confirmed, to her horror, that he was named after Axl Rose.) The boy had been obsessively into the tsunami charity thing, even though Banda Aceh & Co. had long since been upstaged by Katrina, and more or less forgotten. His own father wanted to tell him both causes were passé—too many cooks had spoiled the largesse — but how could he, there he was lavishing time and money on an upscale minimalist grave, and besides, anything to stitch the boy into Family, anything to ground him, was golden. The “pimpy” therapist of course concurred.

After watching Willie Nelson and a bunch of unknown loser-types do their part on MTV for the 200,000+ dead, Axel wanted to pull a Geldof and organize a concert but was having trouble focusing when it came to Indonesia vs New Orleans. He didn’t want to dis Dad re wrong tragedy. (The boy was half hoping, half waiting for another catastrophe to come down the pike.) He wanted Lew’s help getting in touch with people like Mark Cuban and Russell Simmons to coproduce an event. Axel’s shrink conferred with Lew and they decided he wouldn’t make any calls on his son’s behalf but would agree to enlist someone at Guerdon LLC to support Axel’s efforts. Seemed the healthier thing to do.

But then Lew found another stash of DVDs, more tsunami/Katrina footage, with a fresh soundtrack. Axel had lifted lyrics from the MTV special and put them over horrific images of floating bodies. Willie Nelson jauntily sang:

Still is still moving to me

And I swim like a fish in the sea all the time

— the last ending with the body of a tiny corpse being wailed over by its mother. Then came I’m drowning in a whiskey river, bathing my memories in the wetness of its soul —more bodies, putrefaction, stupefaction, and flood.

Lew confessed to Joan that it got much worse; his son was sick. He had downloaded Russian kidporn off the Web and this time used a creepy a cappella version of an old standard to accompany the image of an unseen fat man raping an infant.

You must’ve been a beautiful baby

Cause baby! look at you now—

The discovery put the kibosh on Axel’s plans to be a world-class concert promoter. Lew canceled delivery on the mega-toy International 730 °CXT — the world’s largest pickup truck (he admitted it was partially for himself) — and the 45,000 dollar Opus foosball table being hand-delivered and assembled by a technician from Edinburgh, both gifts for the boy’s now-canceled birthday celebration. The foosballers had tiny 3-D heads of Axel’s friends and family, fastidiously customized from photographs. The shrink said the boy was starting to cross boundaries — Lew: “Duh!”—and that interactions with his sisters should be closely monitored. Lew was getting ready to ship him off to a wilderness camp for psycho kids, something even his ex agreed on.