Bruce Wagner - Still Holding

She would take the train.

Does a Dog Have Buddha Nature?

KIT LIGHTFOOT WAS in his trailer, meditating.

He was thirty-four and had meditated at least an hour a day for nearly a dozen years without fail. Out of carefully enforced humility, he had never shared that statistic with anyone, though the urge to do so frequently came upon him. Whenever he felt the pride of a Zen valedictorian, he smiled and soldiered on, letting the feeling wash over him. Years of zazen had taught him that all manner of thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations would arise and clamor for his attention before falling away.

His career as an actor had barely been launched when a friend turned him on to Buddhism. He took up meditating and, a short while after, visited a monastery on Mount Baldy. It was freezing cold, but there was wordless beauty and a stunning quietude that pierced him to the core. That was the week, he used to say, where he got a taste of stillness. Monks and dedicated laypersons came and went like solemn, dignified cadets amidst the ritualized cadence of drums, chanting, and silence — his unthinkable siren and dangerous new friend, for silence too had a cadence. ( The hard poetry of silence, his teacher once said.) He watched a man being ordained and later found out he had once been a powerful Hollywood agent. Kit grooved to that kind of convert. He loved having blundered into this magisterially abstract Shangri-la of the spirit, a flawless diamond-pointed world that might liberate him from the bonds of narcissism, the bonds of self.

He got deeper into his practice. Between theater and film gigs he traveled to far-flung countries attending monthlong sesshins, awakening at four in the morning to sit on a cushion eleven hours a day when not immersed in the meditation of food preparation, tea ceremonies, groundskeeping. He was glad to be young and strong while learning the art of sitting in stillness. Older initiates had a hard time with zazen ’s physical demands.

It became well-known within the show business community, and outside it too, that Kit was a serious practitioner. He rarely discussed his thoughts or beliefs with interviewers unless the venue was a magazine like Tricycle or Shambhala Sun. He didn’t want to trivialize something so personal or, worse, get puffed up in the process. There were enough celebrities talking about yoga and Buddhism anyway. He gave generously to the Tibetan cause and funded clinics and ashrams through an anonymous trust. That satisfied him more than any public discourse ever could.

In those twelve years of practice, Kit Lightfoot, the celebrity, was often the People’s Choice. He’d finally been snagged by James Lipton (Hoffman and Nicholson were among the remaining holdouts) and photographed in Vanity Fair ’s Hollywood issue with the simple caption “The Man.” He even won Best Supporting for a remarkable, artfully thrown away performance in a fluky, borderline indie lark filmed just before the death of his Buddhist teacher, Gil Weiskopf Roshi. After the fact, it seemed so perfect. It was Gil who had said: Throw it all away.

• • •

IT WAS THANKSGIVING time, and a whore was at his Benedict Canyon home. That used to be his thing, but he hadn’t been with a whore since the early nineties. And he’d never cheated on Viv.

They were coked up in the living room, and he laughed as she held the dog’s head between her legs. It kept trying to break free, and that made the whore laugh too. “Jus’ like his master,” she said. “Real picky. ” She laughed again and released him, then stood to pee. When the whore came back, she knelt by the Buddha at the fireplace and lit a cigarette. There were flowers and incense and tiny photos of enlightened men. She asked about the altar, and Kit said reflectively that it was a gift from Stevie Nicks. Then he gave her a little flash-card intro — Zen 101. Stillness. Sitting. The Power of Now.

“You meditate every day?” she said.

“Every day. For fifteen years.”

A Star Is Born

BECCA WAS PART of Metropolis, a modest theater company that leased space on Delongpre. The roof was undergoing repair, having been damaged in the rains, so the class was temporarily on Hillhurst at the home of one of its founders. Becca thought Cyrus was a wonderful teacher and a good director too. He was for sure an amazing promoter. Aside from agent and exec heavies, he always managed to get people like Meg Ryan and Tim Robbins to show up at openings.

For two weeks, she’d been working with Annie on a scene from a Strindberg play. She had never even heard of Strindberg until she met Cyrus but had to admit she loved Tennessee Williams more. She loved Tennessee’s letters and poems and short stories — everything he wrote was so sad and beautiful yet filled with such tenderness. His women were at once tough and unbearably fragile, just as Becca imagined herself. She’d seen all the films made from his plays and liked This Property Is Condemned best. In real life, Natalie Wood was sad and beautiful too and just as tragic as anything. August Strindberg was brilliant and ruthlessly true to human nature, but sometimes he scared her, leaving her cold. She preferred Ibsen and Chekhov.

After rehearsal, they went to a coffee shop on Vermont.

“Did I suck?”

“No!” said Annie. “You were great. Why? Did you think you sucked?”

“I always think I suck.”

“You so don’t. You’re always amazing. Cyrus loves what you do.”

“You think?”

“Totally. He so totally does.”

“You mean he loves the one line per play he sees fit for me to declaim.”

“You’ll get there,” said Annie. “Anyway, do you see me majorly treading the boards? Do you, Miss Declaimerhead?”

Becca laughed. “I’m just so freaked out — about everything. Ohmygod, did I tell you Sadge might be going to Tasmania for this reality show?”

“No! What is it?”

“I don’t even know.”

“Where’s Tasmania? Is that, like, near Transylvania?”

“Maybe Czechoslovakia?”

“I so want to go to Prague. You should go, Becca! You should go with him and use his hotel as a base. You could do absinthe. Like Marilyn Manson! It would be so rad.”

“I don’t think so, Annie.”

“But won’t it be good, though? I mean, weren’t you saying you needed space?”

“Yeah. But it’ll be weird suddenly being alone.”

“Can’t you not have a boyfriend for one minute ?”

“It’s pilot season, and I haven’t gone up for anything.”

“That’s why you’re freaked out,” Annie said knowingly.

“I guess.”

“But you saw that casting woman.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“What did she say?”

“That I could be a ‘comedienne.’ ”

Annie scrunched her nose the way Becca loved. “What does that mean?”

“I have no idea.”

“You should do open-mike night at the Improv,” said Annie. “You could be the next Margaret Cho.”

“I could waitress at the Cheesecake Factory and after work do open-mike at the Laugh Factory.”

Annie laughed then said, “I think that rocks.”

• • •

ONE OF THE Metropolis ensemble players who guested on Six Feet Under got sick with the flu and gave Annie his tickets to the show’s season premiere at the El Capitan. Becca splurged on a dress from Agnès B.

They lingered in the lobby, getting free drinks and popcorn before going in. Stars like Ed Begley Jr. and Brooke Shields were milling around. The air was electric with showbiz bonhomie.

When they entered the theater, the girls were led to a special roped-off area to sit among the luminaries. They were just an arm’s length from Jeff Goldblum, Kathy Bates, and Pee-Wee Herman. The head of the network got up and said they had all made history and that the cast was the greatest ever assembled. He said the creator of the show was a dark, special kind of genius who had written a drama that was ostensibly about death but actually turned out to be profoundly about life. Then the creator, the ubiquitous Alan, a handsomely nerdy, sweet-faced man, took the stage to a tumult of applause. He comically prostrated himself, saying “Thank God for HBO!” and this time there was a thunder of laughter along with the applause. Becca had never been to the premiere of a television show and was confused when he began to speechify like it was the Academy Awards. He acknowledged this person and that, occasionally interjecting “Thank God for HBO!” and everyone laughed, hooted, and clapped their hands. The audience seemed so happy, healthy, and rich, and ebullient men were kissing each other on the cheeks and mouth. She felt like part of them, like part of the HBO family — she was among the roped off after all, and the same men smiled back at her whenever Becca caught their eyes, as if it were a given that she was one of their own. They were kind and open and not cliquish even though they had every right to be.