Bruce Wagner - Still Holding

• • •

FOR SOME REASON, Lisanne had never been to the Sunset Boulevard Self-Realization temple or church or whatever it was. She’d passed the white-domed tower a thousand times and every once in a while read about the organization in the L.A. Times or heard from a friend how beautiful the grounds were. Phil said it was founded by the man who wrote Autobiography of a Yogi.

The adjoining well-kept park was peaceful in that cliché kind of way, and politically correct in its respectful inclusion of all major religions. A trail circled the lake (an entry sign warned not to feed the fish, who only “pretended to be hungry”). People sat on benches reading or meditating. Unobtrusive shrines to Gandhi and the Buddha garnished the walkways, along with plaques engraved with quotes from Bible and Bhagavad Gita alike. Phil couldn’t help but remark what a valuable piece of real estate the parcel would be should the Fellowship ever decide to divest.

They sat on a small viewing platform by the water. He broke the requisitely contemplative moment by offering sympathies on the death of Lisanne’s father — evidently, the Loewensteins had filled him in. He spoke of his own loss. His parents, in their late forties when he was conceived, had died within a year of each other not too long ago. Until then, Phil said he had deliberately shunned the trappings and responsibilities of the family fortune. A wry proviso of his dad’s will (he didn’t elaborate) forced him to leave the cocoon to help his sister run the charitable foundation that bore their name.

“You’d love Mattie,” he said. “In fact, you’ll love her on Saturday. Because that’s when the three of us are going to have lunch.”

Catharsis

RUSTY TOOK BECCA to Les Deux.

On the way in, they wandered over to the restaurant-owned gallery on the far side of the courtyard. There was an exhibition of bright, poster-size photographs, self-portraits of a fortysomething woman frankly displaying her genitalia. The lady behind the desk said that the subject of “the suite” was Randy Quaid’s wife, a film director. Becca couldn’t really make any sense of it. Was it porno? She tried to summon an image of what Randy Quaid looked like but kept seeing Dennis Quaid instead.

“I’m sorry,” said Rusty, a few minutes after the waiter took their order. “I didn’t mean to go off on you the other day.”

“It really hurt me.”

“I know. Sorry I’m such a dick.”

“I didn’t even know anything about it, Rusty,” she said, quickly becoming emotional. She felt like a child. “I never even talked to Elaine.”

“I know.” He delicatedly put his hand on hers. “I know. Look — there’s going to be a read-through of the piece.”

“What piece?”

“The script. The Spike Jonze thing, on Saturday. I think you should come.”

“But I already called Sharon and told her I couldn’t. That I couldn’t even meet —” She whined and fidgeted in her seat.

“It’s perfect that way — almost better. That it doesn’t come through ‘official’ channels.”

“I just think it would be weird.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s better that you were ‘reluctant.’ ”

“How can I just show up, Rusty?” she asked, with a touch of anger.

“Cause you’ll be with me. ”

“So you’re doing the read-through.” She stared indifferently into space, resigned to the web he had woven. “I think I saw you with him, at the Rose Café.”

“You show up, looking totally Drew. Everyone’ll say: ‘That’s the Drew girl! The one we were supposed to meet.’ ”

“Why can’t I just call Sharon?”

“Go ahead. Call her,” he said. She couldn’t tell if he was getting nasty again. “But at this point, I think it’d be a mistake.”

“She’s mad at me.”

“Then don’t call her,” he said, laughing amiably.

“She got really mad when I told her I didn’t want to do it,” she said, tearing up again. “After you yelled at me, I called and said I didn’t want to go up for a ‘look-alike’—this whole long thing about how I was just doing that kind of work to pay the bills and if I was going to make it, I wanted to make it as myself. And Sharon said I was being really stupid and that she was the one who discovered the guy who won the Golden Globe for playing James Dean and the girl who played Judy Garland on that TV movie and how those actors were doing really, really well. She said that if you have talent —and I did, she said that I did! — then that talent comes shining through and that if you really want to make it you just have to take whatever opportunity comes your way. She said it was a really incredible opportunity to have a meeting with a famous director and that I’d come out a winner either way no matter what because even if they didn’t think I was right, I would stay in their minds for future projects. She said that actors would kill to have a meeting with Spike Jonze — and I felt really bad, Rusty!” She began to cry, full-blown. “I came off as such a jerk! Because I was loyal to you and didn’t understand! I was loyal and I didn’t understand why you wouldn’t want nice things to happen for me! I just couldn’t understand!”

A Gathering at the Gubers’

KIT AND VIV went to a gathering at the Gubers’ for a visiting holy man. H.H. Penor Rinpoche was the head of a monastery in Mysore whose lineage was associated with Kit’s teacher, Gil Weiskopf Roshi.

It was an odd assortment of people. Matthew Perry, Ray Manzarek, and Paula Poundstone listened in rapt attention alongside a contingent of poets, meditators, and a dozen or so saffron-robed monks. But the person whose presence interested Kit most was Ram Dass.

They’d met a number of years ago at a benefit in San Francisco, long before Ram Dass had suffered a debilitating stroke. The onetime Harvard professor and cohort of Timothy Leary had always been charismatic. Now, paralyzed on one side, he radiated “fierce grace.” His dancing eyes still burned with celestial fire; the famous white hair ensorcelled his head like candescent wisps of cloud. After the talk, Kit, Viv, and Matthew went over to say hello.

Ram Dass spoke slowly but without the slur-and-drag Kit had expected. He remembered seeing Kit at Tassajara in the early nineties and knew Gil Weiskopf Roshi quite well. He spoke fondly of his own guru and said that when Maharaj-ji was alive, he wished they could be together more often. But now that his guru was dead, “I’m with him all the time!” Kit asked about the experience of having a stroke, and Ram Dass showed his sense of humor to be fully intact. He mentioned a book he once wrote called How Can I Help? The moment had come, he said, to write the sequel: Who’s Going to Help Me?

• • •

“I FELT KIND OF mercenary,” said Kit, as they drove down the hill. “When I saw Ram Dass, the whole actor thing kicked in. I couldn’t wait to go say hello, then listen to how he talked. I wanted to try it out on Jorgia.”

“You are so bad, ” said Viv, smiling. “But that’s why you’re so good.”

“I thought he’d be much more Kirk Douglas.” He shrugged sardonically. “I was extremely disappointed.”

“You know who Ram Dass kind of reminded me of? Larry Hagman. But I loved the man who spoke. What was his name?”

“Penor Rinpoche. He’s the real deal.”

“You met him before?”

“In Mysore.”

“I’ve seen pictures of that place. A real eyesore.”

“Haw haw.”

“Heh heh. Now who is he again? Penor—”

“A Nyingma master. A tulku. ”