Racketing through the lights and lead-thick fumes of the Lincoln Tunnel, I fantasized spirits you could hire to come in and give your self a complete cleaning, millions of brushes scrubbing white effervescent foam into every obscure or hidden corner of your soul.
Then I remembered a thought I often had about smoking cigarettes: If there were some kind of wonder pill that would clean your lungs out so they were like new, but in taking it you could never smoke again because you'd die, would you take it?
Inevitably my answer is no. Whether it's clean lungs, car, or soul, what happens when you have to breathe again, knowing the air is full of brown pollution? Or drive the car out of the garage, back into the filthy world? Lungs are prepared to breathe bad air, cars to drive on dirty streets
Maybe souls too were meant for hard wear and rough adventure. To make one "toothbrush clean" was a commendable goal, but unless you planned to live in hermetic seclusion forever afterward, it made little sense.
However, if Phil Strayhorn had done what I thought he'd done with his soul, he was inexcusably wrong. Some part of him decided he liked the taste of dirt (or shit, evil, pain) so he decided to see how much he could eat before exploding. That was the only Faustian element I saw here. Souls are made for rough adventure, but not such alarming and cruel ones. The warnings from Pinsleepe, the sexual Kabuki he'd played for Sasha . . .
Once past a certain point, he didn't want to clean his soul. On the contrary, he wanted it dirtier and dirtier, all along asking, like a child, "Will you still love me if I get this dirty? Yes? This dirty?"
Thinking about these things, I emerged from the tunnel into the afternoon light of New Jersey realizing something important: Magical and haunting as they were, I didn't fully believe what Strayhorn said on those videotapes.
Why should I, knowing only some of the things he'd done before killing himself? Had death given him redemption? It didn't sound like it, according to his plea that I straighten out part of his ongoing mess. He was calm and solicitous, but asking favors.
It reminded me of playing with a Ouija board. If it works, a board can be both disturbing and frightening. But whatever dead spirits you do raise are so easily accessible because they've been condemned to some ominous place between life and death where they are eager to talk to anyone who will listen – much like people in prison who, with so much time on their hands, learn to be both extremely eloquent and patient.
The car I'd rented shivered and shook if I took it over sixty-five, so we eased by the smoke and strong chemical smells of Elizabeth and the white and silver lift of planes taking off from Newark Airport.
It was a long trip to Browns Mills, and I had no idea what I'd find there. But something said it was necessary to go, even if only to spend an hour or two looking around and getting a feel for the place. That invisible smell again.
When Cullen and I had returned to her apartment the other day, I spent an hour talking with Danny about what Strayhorn was like on his last trip east. He had nothing new to add except to describe Pinsleepe in greater detail, but that only agreed with what I already knew.
"Did he say why he was taking her to New Jersey?"
"No, only that she'd asked."
"She asked? That's interesting. Nothing else?"
"Only the name of the place. Browns Mills."
The New Jersey Turnpike is pretty once you get by New Brunswick. There's still a lot of traffic, but it feels like that's where the country begins; if you were to get off at any exit you'd soon see cows or small towns where people were friendly and owned trucks.
I hadn't had anything to eat, so I decided to pull off at the next stop and get a hamburger. What more American a tradition is there than the turnpike rest stop? I don't mean those Mom and Pop pretty-good-food one-shot places somewhere off the interstate that sell homemade pralines. I'm talking about a quarter-mile lean on the steering wheel that curves you into a parking lot the size of a parade ground, fourteen gas tanks, toilets galore, and Muzak. The food can be pretty good or pretty bad, but it's the high-torque ambience of the places that make them so interesting, the fact that no one is really there – only appetites or bladders, while eyes stare glazed or longingly out the window at the traffic. These places differ from train stations or airports because you go to such terminals to leave. A turnpike stop is a break in the flow, the concrete island where you can supposedly rest, tank up, get your bearings, and take a few deep breaths before rushing back out into the pack.
They are particularly American because, although the same kind of stops exist on European highways, there people tend to linger. Real meals are served and enjoyed, white tablecloths and flowers are often on the tables, and people eat slowly and talk. When I was in Europe it struck me the driving, and anything associated with it, was regarded as a good part of a vacation or trip, not just the means to get somewhere.
But I liked the feeling of eating in no-man's-land where you didn't really know where you were except, as the signs said, sixty miles from here or a hundred from there. I liked knowing I was sharing the same experience as every person in the place that day. Where do we have that kind of community? At a movie. At a rest stop. In church.
I parked the car and climbed out slowly. What postures we get into when we're driving! No, that's an excuse. When you're young there's never that cranky, stubborn slowness in the muscles. If you're fulfilled or at least busy, there's no reason to think about growing older – that is, until little things like that tap you on the shoulder to remind you. I had my eyes closed and my arms stretched overhead when I heard, "I could tickle you, but I won't."
That stopped that stretch. She was wearing powder blue: a powder-blue sweat suit that said RIDER COLLEGE in about five different places, powder-blue sneakers.
"Hello there. I haven't seen you in a while."
"You didn't need to. Everything you've done so far is perfect. Choosing that man to play Bloodstone and the actors from your group was a great idea."
I leaned against the car and crossed my arms. The sun was behind me so she not only had to look up, she also had to squint to see me. "How come you're here? Are you keeping an eye on me?"
"No. Yes, sort of. I came to tell you not to go to Browns Mills."
"Why?"
"Because there's nothing there."
"Then why can't I go?"
"You can, but . . . all I'm saying is don't waste your time. What you want isn't there. It's back in California."
"What'll happen if I go?"
"Listen, do you believe who I am?"
I thought about that while the low whomping sound of turnpike traffic behind high hedges filled the air. A little pregnant girl in a blue sweat suit, hands in her pockets and eyes squinted to fight off the sun.
"Driving out here I realized I don't trust Phil's tapes."
"That's your choice."
"I have no reason to trust you."
"That's true. But then you have to be afraid of me. Either way, you have to finish this film."
"Why?"
"Because you want to save the lives of the people you still care about. That's the only thing you think is evil, Weber – the pain or death of the ones you love. The problem is, you know there are so few left. You've been leaving everything behind for a long time, friends included. Now you realize it's time to stop thinking about yourself and do something for them.
"I can guarantee that if you don't finish the film, Sasha and Wyatt will –"