The New York group lived in adjoining rooms at a hotel in Westwood and spent most of their time together, which meant when Wyatt and I joined them, they'd already come up with some intriguing possibilities. We'd shown them Midnight Kills and, although their initial reactions were disgust and disappointment, they'd since taken it upon themselves to come up with something that they hoped would raise the level of the film via their contributions.
There were Sean and James, and the third was the amazing Max Hampson. Max was probably the best actor in our group, but the reason Wyatt and I hadn't first considered him was because of his physical condition. He was about forty but had had cancer for over ten years and at least as many operations in that time. One of his legs had been amputated and he usually had to use a wheelchair because neither his arms nor his "good" leg had the strength to support him.
When you heard his story, you knew here was one of those human beings whose lives are one long bruise. His twin sister contracted meningitis when they were children and became little more than a vegetable. Max's parents were alcoholics who found a way of blaming him for the girl's hopeless condition. Somehow he survived this environment and went to college, where he studied business. On graduating, he started a small travel agency that specialized in trips to exotic places. It did well, and he opened a second office. It succeeded too, and he was considering opening a third when a broken leg from a skiing trip didn't heal and it was discovered he had cancer.
What was so amazing about Max was his good nature. He and Wyatt were good friends, and apparently Max had always wanted to be an actor but had never had the courage to try. The disease pushed him toward it, and besides being one of the founding members of our group, he was also one of the great cheerleaders and spirit lifters.
But, like all of them, he knew what constant pain and fear were and his acting displayed them. Recently, when I'd asked Max and Wyatt to do a scene from Waiting for Godot, his performance was so reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin at his saddest and most beautiful that it made me cry.
Wyatt got me onto the photography books. One day he handed me one by someone named Umbo.
"I don't know exactly what I mean, but I think we should make it look and feel like this."
The first photographs were surreal black-and-white still lifes or portraits of women with black lips and bobbed hair, very Louise Brooks. Nothing special. But when I got to the middle of the book it was immediately clear what Finky Linky was talking about.
In the late 1920s this Umbo had taken a haunting series of pictures of show-window mannequins. Using their exaggerated facial expressions and a kind of Expressionist lighting, the photographer had caught something both shadowy and compelling about these mundane figures.
But there was more. A few pages on, Umbo had done another series on a clown named Grock: Grock putting on his makeup, Grock's violin half out of its case, Grock in full costume with a cigarette in his mouth. The power of these pictures was the dust-in-the-corners, bare-bulb sadness of Grock the man's life. We have no idea if this clown is successful, but even if he is you wouldn't trade with him for anything. No matter how many laughs or coins he puts in his pockets, he always comes back to these small dressing rooms with soiled wallpaper and mirrors with his own picture stuck in them (as if to remind himself who he is supposed to be).
Besides the expected horror of Bloodstone, Wyatt wanted the still, almost-real, almost-threatening quality of the mannequins and the yellow sadness of an old clown with a cigarette in his mouth.
Wyatt was right, and that vision led me excitedly to other photographers of the period: Kertesz, Paul Strand, Brassai. But I kept coming back to Umbo and his Grock.
Almost every day I put in the tapes Phil had sent me before he died to see if they would say more, but there was never anything. However, I must have watched my mother's death twenty times. I grew to know every detail, the few words she spoke to the man in the next seat, the small spot on her skirt. . . . It was never comforting to see, not even the twentieth time. I'd been wrong to think if my questions about her death were answered I would feel more at peace with it.
I watched my own films too. It had been years since I'd made them, but generally they held up. Would I have changed parts? Yes, but I'd honestly forgotten so much that when I saw them again and realized how poignant and funny they were, I was proud. There are different kinds of pride, but being able to look back on something you did and know it's still good or important is the best.
I also watched Phil's video The Circus on Fire and many episodes of The Finky Linky Show. Wyatt started to look at the first with me, but it made him depressed and he left the room.
Sasha asked why I was watching so much TV. The only answer I had was that something was there but I couldn't figure out what – yet.
The studio lent me a camera, three video machines, and three televisions. When I had them set up at Sasha's, I'd often put three things on at once to see if I could find what I was looking for. No luck. In the end I felt a little like Lyndon Johnson when he was President, watching the news on three separate channels.
"Christ! What's all that?"
Sasha came into the house with bulging armfuls of grocery bags.
"There's lots more in the car. Would you help?"
"What's going on?"
"Finky Linky and I decided we're going to have a dinner party tomorrow."
"Tomorrow! That's short notice."
"I know you hate socializing, Weber, but you like all the people who are coming, so please don't run away." She stopped putting groceries away and counted off on her fingers. "Dominic and his wife, Max, Sean, and James, Wyatt, you, and me. Eight. Will you make your potato salad?"
"How come a party?"
She took a deep breath. "Because I'm sick of sadness. Wyatt said it's time we laughed some more, and he's right. We even bought a Best of The Supremes tape so we can dance if we want. Okay, Baby Love?"
"Okay. Did you buy lots of bacon? I'll need that for the potato salad."
Finky Linky walked in with more bags. "We did not buy bacon and we forgot sour cream. You're elected to go, Weber. Get you away from those fucking television sets for a while." He held out the car keys, but I said I'd walk.
"Has everyone said they'd come?"
"Yes. We called them this morning. We knew you'd have to come if they all said yes."
"Come on, I'm not that antisocial."
"Really? When was the last time you went out?"
"I went to your birthday party, Wyatt!"
"Yes, six months ago. You've become such a recluse in New York that the only time we ever see you is at rehearsal."
"It's like Phil before he died."
Both of us looked at Sasha. Her last sentence drifted slowly across the kitchen like a well-made paper airplane. I remembered once saying about Strayhorn, "He wanted to be famous. He wanted to be left alone." I'd already had my fame. It was like a too-sweet dessert. Did I also want to be left alone? No sane person wants to be left alone in any real sense.
"Don't fall into that, Weber. Let the people who love you see you now and then."
An ice-cream bar slid across the counter to me. "We even bought your favorite disgusting ice cream, so you have to come."
The market was jumping with after-work shoppers. The place was so large it took fifteen minutes to find the things I'd come for. I was standing at the express checkout line, trying to read the headline on the week's TV Guide, when a voice behind me said, "Word is, you're making a new movie."