Bruce Wagner - The Chrysanthemum Palace

I doubled back to the hall, like a spectator in one of those outré middlebrow dramas where you follow the actors from room to room. I proceeded to the library, where Miriam and Thad were now seated; my return seemed to embolden him, as fresh bodies in the pantry had his mum.

“She wanted to know if I would contribute to the funeral expenses!” he spewed, a wet, fulsome, apoplectic cast to lower lip and jaw. “Can you believe it, Miriam? ‘Security is costing more than I expected.’ We’re over budget ”—he italicized his mother’s words with spasmodic fury—“and since I was making plenty of ‘Hollywood money,’ I should help defray the cost!”

“She’s a bit overwhelmed,” said Miriam, diplomatically.

“Don’t you defend her, Miriam, not you. ”

When he shook his fist in her face, I aggressively stepped from the door frame, to remind that a price would be paid should he dare cross the line. Though he scowled at my Canadian Mountie shtick, it was evident Miriam drew comfort from my efforts, which pleased me to no end.

“Defray the cost! She’s a pathological miser, why doesn’t anyone confront that? Is everyone so fucking terrified of her? Do you know what she’s worth, Miriam? I tell people this and they think I’m delusional. Her daddy left her ten million — that was 1950. 1950!—and she’s kept every cent of it. Not to mention my father’s fortune, not to even get into that. And she knows the IRS has a lien against my apartment in New York, the woman knows it! She makes Bill Saroyan look like fucking Shirley Temple. ” He fixed me with a conspiratorial eye. “If my mother is forced to spend fifty dollars of her own money —that is considered a pornographic catastrophe!”

Miriam threw me an “I’ll handle this” look, and I sneered before leaving — as if to show Mr. Michelet I had better things to do than attend the hot air ravings of a troglodytic has-been.

Morgana was in the living room surrounded by admirers. I’d arrived at the tail end of a condolence call from Vaclav Havel. She hung up and turned to Walter Cronkite. “Do you know who was a fan of Jack’s? Ronnie Reagan. Oh, that really pissed Jack off. Jack hated Ray-Gun — that’s what he called him, just like the Yippies. Jack used to joke that U.S. presidents only read ‘The’ books: ‘The Firm,’ ‘The Stand,’ ‘The Whatever.’ Jack said one day he was going to write a book called ‘The The’ and it’d be his biggest seller yet! I said, Don’t forget the sequels! Oh yes — after ‘The The,’ Jack said he’d write ‘The This’ and ‘The That,’ and they’d go straight to the top of the list!”

Everyone roared.

I glanced “off camera” and couldn’t believe what was outside the window: Thad, creeping along at petty pace, alternately flanked by Miriam and Clea — attendant and geisha. Like a child, I suddenly panicked, as if the trio were cakewalking to Gatsby’s cosmic roadster with full intent of leaving me behind while lifting off for galaxies unknown. I rushed from the room to join the dysfunctional starbound caravan.

The melancholy troll, deep in his cups, moved like molasses toward a break in the wind-smacked hedge that marked a path to the sea.

“My favorite of Dad’s is Chrysanthemum, ” I heard him say as I caught up — out of thin air, the comment seemed surreal. “You’ve read that, haven’t you, Miriam? I know Clea has.” (The latter said with vitriol.) “ Chrysanthemum always reminded me of Mishima.” He caught my eye as he began the précis, old to them, new to me. “It’s about a murderous gardener who returns to the scene of the crime. He’s never caught. Goes back, day after day, year after year, and eventually comes to the exquisitely mundane realization — that… he— just didn’t do it. That’s why I keep coming back— here, to the fucking Vineyard — and why I’ll probably visit again, day after day, year after year. In my head, anyway. I’ll keep coming back —like they say in AA! — until I can see that I just didn’t do it!”

Words and gaze trailed off, almost too wistfully.

“There he is!” came a high, reedy voice. “Sammy Jetson!”

A lean, nasty-looking boy jumped into our space, bursting the bubble. Thad grimaced reflexively, as he probably did ten times a day upon being recognized on the street. A trim, avuncular fellow in his sixties with salt-and-pepper beard materialized as well, and stuck out his hand. “Mordecai Klotcher. Old friend of your dad’s — and Morgana as well.” Thad pumped it, as if by sheer gusto he might cause both man and man-child to dervishly disappear. “We may actually have met when you were quite younger,” he said. “I’ve followed your career and think you’re a marvelous — you bring a wonderful presence to your films.”

“It’s a dirty job,” said Thad, employing a favorite all-purpose retort. “But someone has to do it.”

Klotcher laughed. “You’re better than your films,” he added, with the sudden gravitas of a watchdog essayist and all-around culture critic.

“Are they making a Jetsons sequel?” asked the boy.

He was a bug that needed to be squashed. Thad ignored him, instead turning to Clea with a wicked smile. “He’s a dirty john, but someone has to do him. Said the whore.” Klotcher appeared unperturbed by the blue remark uttered within earshot of his profoundly annoying great-nephew. In fact, he was delighted. “You get that from Jack! He was marvelous at wordplay.” The producer screwed up his face, as they used to say, and remarked, “You wrote a novel some time back, didn’t you?”

“He’s written four,” said Miriam.

“Number five’s in the works,” said Thad, oddly assertive.

“He’s not a writer,” said the boy, caricature of a sitcom brat. “He’s Sammy Jetson.”

“Number five!” exclaimed Klotcher, like his horse had come in. “All still in print?”

“Covers and everything.”

“Can you send them to me? To my office?”

“We abso lute ly can,” said Miriam, extending her hand. “I’m Miriam Levine, Thad’s book agent.”

Klotcher twitched, as if startled to discover someone else had been standing there all along. A burst of shop talk ensued, with glib references to mutual acquaintances; the ever-obliging Ms. Levine, on showbiz autopilot, seemed merrily distraught. To me, anyway.

“The books… they’re adaptable?” said Klotcher, like a tourist who’d learned just enough of the local language to ask the natives for basics. “To film? I’m always hunting for properties, always on the prowl. In fact, I’d like to see the galleys of the new one. That’s where we make most of our acquisitions — galleys.” He turned his attention back to Thad. “You know, I did one of your father’s books years ago, with Julie Christie. Hearts and Vagabonds. ”

“Yes,” said Miriam, piping in. “I loved it.” At the moment, she was the only one in our group who seemed capable of speech. “I’ll send you The Soft Sea Horse. ”

“ That’s the one I’d heard of,” said Klotcher, a reptilian glimmer of recognition lighting up precataract eyes. He fumbled with the title, as if soliciting her help to make the deposit in his memory bank: “The Salton Sea—”

“The Soft Sea Horse,” she corrected.

“Marvelous title! Come to California!” he exhorted. “Will you, Thad? We’ll have a lunch or a dinner.” He swiveled toward Miriam, as if she were the royal food taster — or gastroenterologist. “Can he have a dinner?”